When you're trying to solve a problem with a computer or any piece of technology for that matter, the first thing you should try to do is determine if the problem is with the hardware or with the software.

How you make that determination depends on the problem you're experiencing, but it often involves ruling out one or the other via testing.

Key difference: Firmware is a set of instructions or programs written in machine language that are used to operate electronic devices.ROM is a type of ‘built-in’ memory chip that is capable of holding and storing data in an electronic device. Electronic devices are made up of three main parts: hardware, firmware and software. Firmware is semi-permanent software that’s tied more directly to the hardware and updated less often, and hardware is the physical components that are most permanent. Permanence and update change frequency—it’s an interesting way to think about it.

Regardless of how you get to that answer, there is often much confusion when it comes to hardware vs. software. It gets even more confusing when firmware is brought into the mix.

Here's more on how each of these 'wares' differs, something you need to know if you plan on doing even the simplest of troubleshooting on any of your myriad of tech devices:

Hardware Is Physical: It's 'Real,' Sometimes Breaks, and Eventually Wears Out

Hardware is 'real stuff' that you can see with your eyes and touch with your fingers.

Unfortunately, being a physical item, you can also sometimes smell it as it dies a fiery death, or hear as it physically decays in its last motions.

Is There A Difference Between Firmware And Software

Since hardware is part of the 'real' world, it all eventually wears out. Being a physical thing, it's also possible to break it, drown it, overheat it, and otherwise expose it to the elements.

Here are some examples of hardware:

• Laptop
• Desktop computer
• Printer

While a smartphone is a piece of hardware, it also contains software and firmware (more on those below). Hardware devices are also comprised of other hardware devices; a tablet or computer, for example, contain individual components like a motherboard, a processor, memory sticks, and more.

While it's not always this easy, using one of your five senses (except taste... please don't taste any part of your computer system) is often your best way to tell if the hardware is the cause of a problem. Is it smoking? Is it cracked? Is it missing a piece? If so, the hardware is probably the source of the problem.

As sensitive as we've made hardware out to be in what you've just read, one great thing about hardware is that it can usually be easily swapped out. The software you lose may be irreplaceable, but most hardware is 'dumb' — the replacement often being as valuable as the original.

See this list of computer hardware devices for more on some of the common parts of a computer system and what they're used for.

Software Is Virtual: It Can Be Copied, Changed, and Destroyed

Software is everything about your computer that isn't hardware.

Here are some examples of software:

• Operating systems like Windows 10 or iOS

Since software is information and not a physical thing, there are few barriers to it existing. For example, one physical hard drive might take two pounds of materials to create, meaning 3,000 hard drives would take 6,000 lbs of materials. One software program, on the other hand, can be duplicated 3,000 or 300,000 times, over as many devices, but be taking up essentially no more physical resources.

Software exists to interact with you, the hardware you're using, and with hardware that exists elsewhere. For example, a photo sharing software program on your PC or phone works with you and your hardware to take a photo and then communicates with servers and other devices on the internet to show that photo on your friend's devices.

Software is also extremely flexible, allowing it to be continuously updated and modified. While you certainly wouldn't expect your wireless router to 'grow' another antenna or your smartphone to get a bigger screen as it charged on your nightstand, expect your software to regularly gain features and grow in size as its updated.

Another great thing about software is its potential to last indefinitely. So long as the software is copied to newer hardware before the current device fails, the information itself could exist as long as the universe does. Equally amazing is that software can be destroyed. If there are no copies, and the software is deleted, it's gone forever. You can't run to the store and pick up a replacement for information that never existed anywhere else.

Troubleshooting a software problem is usually more complex than working through a hardware one. Hardware issues are often times straightforward — something is broken or not and may need to be replaced. The steps required to solve a software problem depend on what information you're given about the issue, what other software is running, what hardware that software is running on, etc.

Most software issues start with an error message or another indication. It's here that you should start your troubleshooting process. Search for the error or symptom online and find a good troubleshooting guide that will work you through the problem.

Firmware Is Virtual: It's Software Specifically Designed for a Piece of Hardware

While not as common a term as 'hardware' or 'software,' 'firmware' is everywhere — on your smartphone, your PC's motherboard, even your TV remote control.

Difference Between Firmware Hardware Softw…

Firmware is just a special kind of software that serves a very narrow purpose for a piece of hardware. While you might install and uninstall software on your computer or smartphone on a regular basis, you might only rarely, if ever, update the firmware on a device and you'd probably only do so if asked to by the manufacturer, probably to fix a problem.

What About Wetware?

Wetware refers to life — you, me, dogs, cats, cows, trees — and is usually only used in reference to the technology related 'wares' we've been talking about, like hardware and software.

This term wetware is still used most often in science fiction but it's becoming an increasingly popular phrase, especially as human-machine interface technology progresses.

With so many “-wares” in computers, it can get confusing what is what. While we can’t explain all the “-wares,” in this article we will discuss the term “firmware” and how it’s different from software.

What Is Firmware?

Let’s spill the beans right away – firmware IS software. According to Wikipedia, firmware is “a type of computer program that provides the low-level control for the device’s specific hardware.”

Almost any of today’s devices, be it a computer, phone, stereo, car, or a washing machine, comes from the manufacturer with some form of firmware. For simpler devices, firmware is all they need in order to function. For more advanced devices, e.g. computers, you need more software – such as an operating system and software applications – in order to make use of them.

Related: [MTE Explains] Differences Between UEFI and BIOS

Firmware vs. Software: How Is Firmware Different from Software?

Again, let’s state it clearly – firmware IS a variety of software; it’s programming code after all. The confusion comes from the fact that the typical “software” we usually refer to are programs such as Microsoft Word, a web browser, etc., while in reality software is every code you can find on a machine (a computer, a phone, car, or any other smart device).

It’s more precise to call software, such as Microsoft Word, a web browser, etc., “application software” because they are applications, after all. However, this is too long and impractical. This is how “application software” became simply “software.”

One of the main differences between firmware and application software is that firmware is stored in non-volatile memory (ROM, EPROM, or flash memory), while application software can work from volatile and virtual memory as well.

Related: 4 Great Alternative Firmwares to Install on Your Router

The fact that firmware resides in memory that is limited in size means that a firmware program must be small in size. Firmware can be as small as a few kilobytes, though depending on the specifics of the device where you run it, it can be bigger, too.

Frequency of updates is another major difference between firmware and application software. In many devices firmware isn’t meant to be updated by the user, and very often the manufacturer of the device doesn’t give users access to the firmware at all.

For instance, on devices such as hard disks, optical drives, consumer electronics, etc., typically users aren’t given the chance to mess with the firmware. This is good because if a user could mess with the firmware of these devices, the result might be a non-working device.

In other cases, i.e. the BIOS of computers and the firmware of smartphones and music players, it can be updated by users. This is even recommended because by providing firmware updates the manufacturer can fix bugs in previous firmware versions or provide new features.

However, even if a device allows firmware updates, you need to be very cautious, and you really, really, really need to know what you are doing because otherwise you might have to bid adieu to the device and this is not what you want.

Basically, this is what you need to know about firmware.