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Good, Affordable PC Diagnostic Software?
"The premise of PC diagnostics software is simple: provide an easy way to test for PC hardware problems, independent of software configuration. Some hardware vendors (like Dell) provide diagnostics with their systems, but they are usually model-specific and not even all major vendors provide them. Of course there are free utilities like the well-known memtest86, but I was wanted something more comprehensive.
So I started my research, and found a variety of packages, including PC Doctor, PC Check, Microscope, PC Certify, Tufftest Pro, among many others, ranging in price from $500 to $35. Some come with associated hardware, such as loopback connectors for parallel, serial, network or USB ports, or ISA / PCI cards that will show low-level POST codes for machines that appear completely dead.
Some of the vendors provided demos, but most were severely crippled. The cheaper software tended to be outdated and incomplete, lacking support for newer hardware features. Almost all practiced high-pressure sales tactics over the phone, and I discovered that one company was actually a spinoff of another by a disgruntled former employee, resulting in a bitter, lawsuit-ridden feud.
Microscope, by Micro 2000, seemed to have the most online feedback, mostly positive, but they didn't provide a demo. After contacting their sales, they suggested that if I bought a full copy for my evaluation, I could return it in 30 days if it didn't meet my needs. Well, it turned out to be buggy and missing important features found in other, cheaper products. When I called to return the product, the salesman disclaimed all knowledge of the promise they made, and they've refused to take it back. Some further digging found that I'm not the first person to be taken in by these tactics.
I still would like to find worthwhile PC diagnostics software, but the (a) lack of independent reviews, (b) shady industry sales tactics and (c) poor performance of a 'well regarded' package leave me wondering... am I a sucker for buying into the whole concept in the first place? Can anyone point me towards a reputable vendor, or an alternative set of independent tools that will do the same job?"
SiSoft's Sandra is good for some basic hardware info on the machine.
It was nice finding out that the RAM I bought from Coast-to-Coast memory that I got a "deal" on was actually a step down in terms of speed (which they were selling for the "sale" price...so it all worked out).
They have diagnosit tests, but I've only used the free version. But its a nice first-line strategy for sizing up machines.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
A low-cost alternative is a bootable copy of Knoppix, escpecially usefull if equipped with a virus scanner - like/ 93.php>Knopicillin - sorry no ISO Image found - it was once in the C'T magazine...
http://www.linuxforum.com/linux_wallpapers_full
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
If you like dell diagnostics, then you should probably buy PCdoctor. Atleast some of the diagnostics in the earlier versions of Dell servers were sublicensed from PCdoctor. Just go into the installation folder and liik at the DLL names, or read a config file.
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
The Troubleshooter by SmartCertify direct. It comes as a bootable floppy, with a couple of dongles and a CD-ROM to test ports while in diagnostic mode. This has worked excellently for us...we were able to diagnose some odd, random computer issues as being caused by bad video RAM
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
The best tools for checking memory are memtest86 and the follow-up memtest86+.
Both of these are free to download and use. I usually leave them running for roughly 24hrs for a reasonable level of confidence. You should also burn-in the other major components too but memory is the best place to start.
#1 TuffTEST pro is a cheap, bootable, hardware-only diagnostic. It supports all current x86 processors. It does not work on top of DOS or Windows or anything, so it's convenient for eliminating the hardware as a problem. Works great, I use it all the time. As a side note, if you use it on Dell machines, Dell seems to have an internal loopback on the serial and parallel ports. It will report the ports are OK even if they're not. http://www.tufftest.com/
I use the ulitmatebootcd. It consolidates several good boot floppy images onto one cd, including many free hardware diagnosis programs.
It is not possible to diagnose hardware by running software on it. At best you can determine if there is a hardware failure, but no software will be able to nail it down to a specific component all of the time.
Consider a motherboard failure for instance - a failing motherboard can in effect emulate any other hardware failure - ide controller bad? Your software may blame the hard drive. Bus problems can cause memory checks to fail.
I recommend you carry a simple bootable cdrom that loads the entire system (disk i/o, memory i/o and cpu load) and checks for errors. When a system fails these checks all it tells you is the problem is definately hardware and not a buggy driver or other software issue.
See BartPE for a good free solution.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
I have yet to find diagnostic software that is more reliable than my own expereince/instincts. I haven't really done an exhaustive search, but the handful that I have used tend not to work well (and take...too...long...).
Most OEM's are fairly accomodating if you describe problems in a decent amount of detail (and the machine is under warranty).
If these are white boxes, you're probably better off keeping a pile of spare parts around. A quick swap can get a machine up and running quickly.
Good Luck!
The only effective hardware tests I've used in the ten years I've been supporting all kinds of hardware and software have been SpinRite and Memtest86. Between these two, I can check for the most insidious and hard-to-detect hardware problems; i.e. flakey hard drives and RAM. A cheap $20 POST card is highly useful for dead machines. You don't need all the extra features the Microscope card gives you unless you are designing motherboards or doing some other such serious work. No software will replace your own experience and ability to know where a problem is forming based on the specific failure of the machine. All the rest of the so-called diagnostic software is more or less useless from a practical perspective, aside from testing serial ports with loopback plugs and printing cute certification reports for anal customers. This is detective work. You have to suss out the exact problem based on clues left by the failure of the system. Learn how the hardware works, and it's easier than you think.
Learn how a CPU works before you learn to program. Seriously.
As others mentions, memtest86 and knoppix are invaluable tools.
/var/log/messages ;-)
Other tools you might be interested in;
Aida32 basically lists all of your devices, drivers, wmi software entries, pci devices, etc. for windows - needs an install, though.
OnTrack sell Easy Recovery Professional; the "file repair" options are pretty crappy, but for serious, near-forensic recovery on fscked up filesystems, ERP is a fine tool. Some of OnTrack's software (i.e. SMART tests, usually) may be licensed by the manufacturer of your harddrive, so check those pages out.
SiSoft Sandra is recommended a lot, but I don't find it offers a lot of diagnostics, though it is prone to crashing.
On windows, you might want to check out the Event Viewer, hidden in the Computer Management section of the (classic) Control Panel -- it will list all sorts of errors and notifications, kind of like
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
I was a PC repairman for many years. I say from experience that all those software diagnostics suck.
Microscope from Micro2000 is actually the best of the bunch, but that's not saying much. If your computer won't even post, non of these tools will do you any good. (They do have some good training materials for those wanting an A+ or N+ COMPTIA cert.)
The PCI cards that display diagnostic codes are better than the software in those cases. They still aren't very helpful though. Basically they will tell you there is a problem with the memory, or the parallel port, etc., but they won't tell you exactly what's wrong so they aren't of much use either.
Here's my advice:
1. Get the power supply tester from PC Power & Cooling. It's $20, and in my experience most of the time the reason a computer won't even post is because the cheapass power supply that came with the case died.
2. Carry a bunch of known good parts: an AGP and a PCI video card you know work, a PCI network card and PCI modem, some known good RAM (PC 100 and DDR), and a good hard drive. Ideally, these are all in a fully working computer you've brought to the site so you can swap between the working computer and the not-working computer and narrow down the problem. Resist the temptation to fix the system with your known good parts; make them buy new, name-brand components with a warranty.
3. Bring a USB keyboard and mouse. I've seen lots of 3+ year old computers have their PS/2 connections short out or stop working but their USB ports are just fine. They can solve input problems.
4. Have a Knoppix CD in your kit. The linux forensic toolkit can be of great use recovering files and finding problems.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
That the free stuff is just as good (if not better) than high-priced diag software.
Allow me to give you some background:
I have done IT work for 4.5 years. I work with Novell, RedHat, all (disgusting) flavours of Windows, BeOS, Sun, SGI, Apple (Mac) and QNX. I support everyone from Joe Grandma to major Universities and Medical Colleges.
I have several CDs worth of useful tools at my disposal, all of them free:
Ad-Aware: I consider this to be my single best resource in the fight against Windows NT (and up) flakery.
www.trendmicro.com does an on-line virus scan. Not perfect, but usually finds the major ones.
Demos of Anti-Trojan. Again, good enough for the closing of trojan ports left open.
AVG Anti-Virus software. Good, free AV software, if Norton isn't available.
Winzip: Obviously a good thing, many many drivers come zipped.
A CD full of the most common NIC drivers from the biggest vendors.
nVidia and ATI drivers.
Via drivers
All the latest browsers on another CD.
MemTestx86 (as you have found): Allow me one point further int he favor of it, major memory makers will accept their RAM bad, no questions asked (in my experience) if you tell them it was checked and found bad, via MemTextx86.
SiSoft Sandra, if for nothing else than the CPU-Burn wizard. If the CPU is bad, Sandra will find out.
Emergency Boot disks and cd-rom access disks (sadly, the Win98 boot disk is pretty handy)
A live Linux and live BeOS CD (very handy for recovering data of hosed systems)
And last, but not least, a good Google search. Another thing that has saved my skin time and again is to input exact error messages and see what Google turns up.
This whole cd-wallet has set me back perhaps $20, and does far more than "professional" diag tools can hope to accomplish.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
In my experiance, the best hardware for diagnosing PC hardware problems is another PC that you know works. Quite frankly, the built in diagnostic capabilities of PC hardware is extremely poor, the only reliable way to discover if a part if bad is to replace it with a known good part and see if that fixes the problem. Don't blindly trust new or especially refurbished parts either, they need to be tested and known good. With experiance you will know what parts to try first, but it is still important to verify that replacing the failed component with a new part fixes the problem.
I remember back at school where the tech support guys were ripping their hair out because a lot of the school issued PCs were coming back with random crashing problems. (I had a roommate who's machine would crash everytime the screensaver kicked in). They were replacing parts left and right and it never seemed to fix the problem. My roommate had everything replaced except the case at one part, and it still crashed on a vanilla Win3.1 install. It took them awhile to realize that most of the machines had bad memory, and the vendor supplied replacement memory for the systems was usually bad as well. I eventually loaned my roommate my memory sticks, and when his system didn't crash he went back to the PC guys and told them exactly what the problem was and made them continue swapping in RAM sticks until they finally found one that worked (apparently the RAM was OK in their hardware RAM tester, but failed once it was actually put in PCs. They suspected the same thing was happening at the vendors end. They would get bad memory, test it and not discover a problem, then ship it right back to the school.
I read the internet for the articles.
Hi, I recommend AIDA as a Sysinfo tool. Free and powerful, can even run in batch mode.
http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php
Ziad
www.ultimatebootcd.com
.::Dread
Free and includes loads of software.
Sandra has some uses, but it, like a lot of other "hardware diagnostics" software, has a HUGE disadvantage.... It expects your operating system to be in good working order. It also expects that you have current (and appropriate) drivers installed for all your hardware. Any good technician already knows the tenet "Divide and conquer". When troubleshooting, you want to know if the problem is caused by the hardware or the software. If your software is screwed up, how can you trust the diagnostics to properly report that the HARDWARE is good?
Likewise, anyone can write a driver bad enough to make the video tests fail, but that doesn't mean the video card is actually defective.
Years ago, I worked at a PC manufacturer and we used QAPLUS FE. It was small enough to fit on a floppy disk, and had modules for all the independant subsystems: CPU, RAM, VIDEO, IO Ports, Timer channels, interrupts, Hard disk... You could select all the tests and let it run all night. If it failed on something, it actually gave you an idea on what might be the problem.
I would recommend QAPLUS if they had an up-to-date version that booted from a CD and had it's own KNOWN GOOD drivers for hardware. A Plus would be some sort of modular technology that would allow you to add drivers for more hardware in the future.
If you come to a computer that needs work and you boot into a Knoppix CD you get...a desktop. On the other hand if you boot on to something like the ultimate boot cd you get a nice menu broken down by category of things like "File system utilities", "Memory Tests", and "Hard drive cloning". I just don't see how Knoppix can compare to that. I'm willing to listen though, if you care to explain what makes it so great for this.
SCO.com uses Linux
I suggest you make a Knoppix CD with LTP installed. With a little configuration, that will take care of all of all your tests for the memory, disk, IO, and CPU. You might want to install America's Army or something to test the video subsystem.
If you put a little effort into it, you'll have a test suite as good as, and likely better than, anything you could pay money for. If you want to buy something, you can make a donation to the LTP and Knoppix projects.
There are also simpler tools, like Memtest86. I find this tool to be invaluable when I try to salvage old hardwar. I can't begin to tell you how much time it's saved me that I would have spent aimlessly swapping components around.
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
Prerequisites:
(1) GHOST'ed hard drive with Windows 2000 installed, and the Sysprep utility enabled on it
(4) Processors: a Socket 7, a Slot A, a Socket A, and a Socket 478
(4*2) RAM modules: a couple of 72 pin SIMM's, a couple of PC-66 SDRAM's, a couple of PC-133's, and a couple of DDR's
(3) Power supplies, an AT, an ATX, and one of those new ATX'es
(2) Motherboards, 1 AT, 1 ATX
(2) video cards, 1 PCI and 1 AGP
Step 1:
Replace user's HD with your SYSprep'd one. Boot. If you can boot, Win2K will do it's hardware detection routine. If it finishes, and boots to a 2K desktop, your problem is probably software and you have to narrow down from there. If it's using Windows, boot with user's hard drive in safe mode. If problem does not occur, disable taskbar lint under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Cur
Step 2:
If the user's machine did not go past the Win2K hardware detection routine, then the problem is hardware. Go into the PC's CMOS and reset to Setup Defaults. If that doesn't work, CMOS is OK, it's a hardware component. The list of problematic components in a typical PC, listed in desending order of probability is:
Go into the CMOS, disable L2 cache on the motherboard (common problem and you don't have to swap out anything). Try Win2K detection routine. If it works, motherboard L2 cache is the problem. If it doesn't, swap the ram. If it works, it's RAM. If it doesn't, swap the processor. If it works, it's chip. If it doesn't, swap the PSU. If it works, it's PSU. If it doesn't, take out all add-on cards and swap the video cards. If it works, swap back each add-on card one by one until the problem re-occurs. When it re-occurs, the last card you swapped back in was the problem. Replace it, and you are good to go.
Using this technique, I can troubleshoot 90% of PC's in 15 minutes or less, 90% of the time. HTH.