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Hardware interview questions
Hardware questions a IT support / sysadmin can be asked, from first job to senior. Open one to see the strongest answer and why it works.
A desktop powers on — fans and lights — but the monitor stays blank. How do you work through it?
The strongest answer: Check the monitor’s own power and selected input and try another cable and port, then whether the machine is posting at all: status lights or beeps, and reseat the memory and the graphics card before I suspect the board
Why it works: Exactly. Cheapest and most reversible first, and “is it posting?” is the question that splits the search in half.
- Cheapest and reversible first.
- Monitor power, input, cable, port.
- Then: is the machine posting?
- Reseat memory and card before the board.
“The printer is broken.” First checks?
The strongest answer: Power, paper, toner, the right queue, and whether anyone else can print — then the cable or Wi-Fi, not a driver reinstall as step one
Why it works: Exactly. Shared versus one person, then physical, then software. Drivers are later.
- Power, supplies, queue, who else.
- Then path (cable / Wi-Fi).
- Drivers after the obvious.
- Do not start with a purchase.
What does RAID 1 protect you from that RAID 0 does not, and is an array a backup?
The strongest answer: RAID 1 mirrors, so the volume survives a disk failure; RAID 0 stripes for capacity and loses everything if one disk dies. Neither is a backup — a deletion or a corruption is written to every member at once
Why it works: Right. Redundancy protects against a disk dying; it does not protect against the wrong thing being written.
- RAID survives disks, not mistakes.
- RAID 1 mirrors; RAID 0 has no redundancy.
- Every member gets the same bad write.
- Say “RAID is not a backup”.
A new laptop will not boot from your imaging stick, though the same stick works on older machines. What do you look at in firmware?
The strongest answer: Whether the stick was built for UEFI rather than legacy boot, whether Secure Boot is refusing it, and the boot order — and I turn Secure Boot back on afterwards rather than leaving it off across the fleet
Why it works: Exactly. Newer machines often have no legacy boot path at all, so a legacy-only stick is simply invisible to them.
- Match the stick to the firmware mode.
- UEFI versus legacy boot.
- Secure Boot may refuse it.
- Turn protections back on afterwards.
A file server’s single-parity array reports one failed disk. It is still serving files and the users have noticed nothing.
What do you do, and in what order?
The strongest answer: Confirm the backup is current and restorable before I touch anything, then replace the disk and rebuild — a rebuild reads every remaining disk end to end, which is when a second tired disk gives up
Why it works: Exactly. The rebuild is the most dangerous hour that array will ever have, so the backup check comes first.
- Check the backup before the rebuild.
- Rebuilds stress every remaining disk.
- Replace one disk, then wait.
- Never pull a second member.
One person “owns printers” in their head. What do you standardise?
The strongest answer: Models you support, a queue naming scheme, and a replace-not-tinker rule — I do not standardise every tray personality
Why it works: Exactly. Supportable set and names. Floor-by-card is a zoo. Philosophy PDFs are shelves.
- Supported models + naming + replace rule.
- Do not write a philosophy novel.
- Do not let floors random-buy.
- Do not pretend paper vanished.
A file server under a desk has no owner. When do you retire it?
The strongest answer: When you cannot name the data, the backup, or the person who will answer at 02:00 — a quiet pet is a future incident
Why it works: Exactly. No data story, no 02:00 name, it goes. Friday unplugs are cruelty, not discovery.
- Retire what you cannot name or page.
- “Has not failed” is not a plan.
- Do not Friday-unplug to find owners.
- Pets are future incidents.