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Suggestions for POST Diagnostic Cards?
antis0c asks: "I have a number of PC's of mine, and family that have stopped working, or caused other odd unknown failures such as 4 different harddrives, different brands, all becoming physically damaged in the same computer. General fixing is as easy as removing some hardware until the problem goes away, then putting it back until it comes back, thus narrowing down to the single problem hardware. However more tricky problems require a POST Card. I've never purchased one before and I think I could get more use out of older hardware if I did, and I was wondering if the Slashdot community had any suggestions and comments on the various brands out there such as POSTmortem, MSD PostCodeMaster, and PC Engines. Thanks."
Just go out and buy the 'first POST' card you see.
Damn, it's just too easy.
Unfortunately, no one can be told what my sig is...
Ahh yes, POST cards. Points Out Stuffed Technology. Before they came in card form, it used to be a little midget in your computer (mind you, back then computers filled entire nations, so they were actually giants) and they'd run around saying "Oooh, look at that! It's stuffed!", for which we'd be forever grateful.
If you can pick up one of these, you'll save yourself tonnes, because POST midgets are cheap, reliable and they feed and clothe themselves. Mind you, when they get bored they start to play with your hardware, so remember to keep a cattle prod close by.
So which brand to get? Choose one that's polite, friendly, doesn't smell to bad (it can get hot in there, people, and they don't like having cooling fans strapped to their heads) and knows his shit. There's nothing worse than a POST midget who insists that "Houston, we have a problem. The red light is flashing" whenever you read data from the hard disk.
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
The single biggest cause of problems in a computer system that was once stable is bad connections. Just open up the case, pull out all connectors and adapter cards a few millimeters, and push them back. That cleans the contacts.
That said, I have no idea how well it works, or what the delay is now that he's moved. But I'd vouch for his good guy status, and he's shipped other high quality parts to me.
The actual part is so deathly simple, it should just read I/O port 80 and put it on an LED, so I can't imagine there is a bunch of difference in quality, but that's just me. Last time I needed one, the hardware engineer in the cubie next to me just hooked up his logic analyzer and 2 minutes later I had the post code.
Kirby
I have had good experience with the POST Code Master.
A nice touch is that the card will monitor voltage rails and test its own LED segments.
I also had the opportunity to meet the developer of the card - a nice guy.
What are you doing with this machine? You're not putting DRM-enabled drives into your Kazaa server are you?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
And, how are we related?
The famous german c't Magazine has instructions how to build a very simple ISA-based POST card, using only two GALs, a two-digit seven segment LED display, and 15 resistors. You can buy the programmed GALs at eMedia (order code 9503314PAL, 9,50 EUR, roughly the same in US$). The full article is available online for 0,40 EUR. (If you create a new account, you will get 1,00 EUR to play with. So basically, it is free.)
I built one POST card myself, and I never leave home without it. ;-)
Denken hilft.
I've got this card, and it's great -- monitors bus voltages, and also has latching LEDs for each IRQ and DMA channel. Has a BIOS extension on it that includes a bunch of diagnostics (including par/ser loopback, drive and RAM exercising, etc.) so you can do quite a bit of testing without (or despite :-) an OS.
Of course, just a few months after I bought the card the manufacturer dried up and blew away. Now I need a PCI equivalent and haven't seen one out there.
4 drives in the same machine? damnit man, put a fan on them. Heat causes the early demise of most harddrives. You'd think after the first couple you'd have figured that out...
Let me get this straight, you want a good POST diagnostic card packed with all the latest features?
So, what your really looking for are POST cards from the edge?
No thanks required. No, really.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Mind you, it's not worth fixing the old stuff anymore - not when whole systems cost less than a game console.
Power ON Self Tests are what the BIOS conduct automatically to check the buss traffic and see if there are any tie ups. Also known as BEEP Codes, they cause the computer to beep the first time it is started up. If the computer has a working speaker you can use this function of the BIOS. It requires that you know who made the BIOS and what their BEEP Codes are. SEEN HERE: http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm
I've done tech work at just about every level, and I've used several POST cards. I honestly haven't found them to be THAT reliable. Sure, it's nice to have confirmation that something is broken, instead of the result of a loose cable or an installation "oops", but I'd far rather have a memory-test card than a post card.
RAM problems can be a lot more annoying to diagnose IMO, while the times I've used POST cards, I either haven't learned anything from them, or I've gotten conflicting results from repeated uses.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
You can buy an HP logic analyzer on EBay and program them to do PCI decodes and record POSTs. The deep throats and the new wizbang color models are still very expensive but you can get one that will work for well under a thousand.
I debugged the Linux kernel boot process on an embedded box with POSTs and an HP logic analzyer. One you get some hardware geek to set it up for you it's a slick way to work on that kind of stuff.