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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 The cheaper software tended to be outdated and incomplete, lacking support for newer hardware features.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.
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.
Nothing beats experience and a supply of 'known good' replacement parts. I have been out of the repair and troubleshooting business for years, but I always remember being frustrated at useless memory and system testing software that could not find anything wrong with memory chips, etcs, that were obviously bad. Even most hardware units (like ram testers) were almost useless. If the POST testing didn't find anything wrong, it seemed almost nothing else would either, most of the time. If you think the part is bad, swap it out with an equivalent and see if the problem goes away.
And that's why... Most technicians do it by instinct and years of experience. If this peticular thing is happening, you know it could be one of x, y, or z.
:)
That's always worked better for me than anything else. Although it would be nice to have something tell me what's wrong
stressing under the weight of years worth of hardware & software Bibles. If there is such a miracle as a good diagnostic program that can keep up with the daily onslaught of new hardware, protocols and standards, then I have wasted a lot of my time but wish you the best of luck on your quest.
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
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.
PC hardware is shit. Made as cheaply as possible, knocked out by the million. Nothing gets repaired - nothing is repairable. If it's broken, buy a new one.
PC software is shit. Software is still in the dark ages. No qualifications to show who has the first clue about quality, security, extensibility etc.
If you get any problem you can't fix in 30 mins, best to make sure you've backed up everything important (naturally you never need to ask anyone whether this is the case, because everybody always backs up their important data on a daily basis, right?), then just format or ghost the fucking disk. End of problem, and no tedious troubleshooting what happens when you try and get a LameSoft2000 graphics card working with a ShysterTronics printer.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
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.
I have tried to find this, but the problem with getting flawed hardware to run software to detect it is flawed is just that in concept.
First of all, if it is an issue with hardware, the machine may not boot at all. If it is a ram issue, the diagnostic software may generate errors.
Second, even if it highlights an error in a configuration, it could be generated with the analysis software.
Third is that failed hardware often will not register as failed unless it is operating. Such as, a failed modem will not become noticable until it is used and then it may lock the computer up which could stop the software diagnosing the issue.
Your best bet is to use a cause and effect analysis. Then trial and error. The machine won't boot, find every possible cause of it not booting and eliminate each one as a possible cause. Continue on this until the issue is completely solved. Make a checklist for yourself so you don't forget anything.
It is how I do freelance repairs and it has proven bulletproof compared to the Voodoo Computer Repair Experts that try random things in the hope that it fixes the issue. (Install drivers, reinstall OS, Check CPU)
If you pay with a credit card and the vendor tries to screw you over you can contest the billing and return the unsatisfactory product, In fact I am in the process of cancelling an order i placed for Serif's Photoplus 7 because the site selling it never mentioned that it was old and shitty, but they were perfectly happy to tell me how bad it was when they called me asking if i wanted to pay $50-$90 to upgrade to version 8 or 9... obviously contesting the charge is a last resort but overall I feel much more confident buying software online because i know that i am not out the money untill i actually pay the credit card bill (for internet purchases there is no signature)
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
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.
PC diagnostics are really two-part work. Part one is to fix the PC, and part two is to convince the luser that the machine is actually fixed. That's where the diagnostic software comes in handy. Run the software, show the luser the "problem", fix the PC, and show the luser that the problem is "fixed". I've found that a piece of paper in a luser's hand is worth hours and hours of post-fix re-diagnostics because "something" has changed.
Uh, yeah.. No, about half our customers' problems at our Support firm are over Norton Utilities or SystemWorks, or some other Symantec product breaking and screwing up the OS. Happens daily. They don't learn anything, but how to manually uninstall a Norton Product.
I have found variations of the Hopi rain dance to be effective in solving many PC hardware problems. Tibetan chanting also work well.
an ill wind that blows no good
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