If a system is composed of several parallel or redundant components which can be removed without crippling the whole system, start removing these components (one at a time) and see if things start to work again.
Example 1: A “star” topology communications network between several computers has failed. None of the computers are able to communicate with each other.
What to do: Try unplugging the computers, one at a time from the network, and see if the network starts working again after one of them is unplugged. If it does, then that last unplugged computer may be the one at fault (it may have been “jamming” the network by constantly outputting data or noise).
Example 2: A household fuse keeps blowing (or the breaker keeps tripping open) after a short amount of time.
What to do: Unplug appliances from that circuit until the fuse or breaker quits interrupting the circuit. If you can eliminate the problem by unplugging a single appliance, then that appliance might be defective. If you find that unplugging almost any appliance solves the problem, then the circuit may simply be overloaded by too many appliances, neither of them defective.
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