Slashdot Mirror
Software To Diagnose Faulty PC Hardware?
Etylowy writes "Over the years I have repaired my own PC and those belonging to family and friends many, many times. While in most cases it turned out to be restoring a system after malware/the user/Windows made a mess, or simple cases of 'follow the smell of smoke and molten plastic,' there were some nasty ones where the computer mostly works. By 'mostly,' I mean: you can boot it up, it might even work for a while, but will crash way too often to blame it all on Microsoft — what do you do then? Once you strip it of any extra hardware (which, with today's motherboards that have pretty much everything integrated, might not be an option) you are left with the CPU, motherboard, graphics card, RAM and HDD. You can test the HDD, you can run memtest86+ to check the RAM, but how do you go about testing the CPU, motherboard and graphics card trio to find which is to blame? Replacing them one by one isn't really an option. Do you know of any software that would help the way memtest helps with RAM?"
It will stress your RAM, CPU, and GPU or all at once with pretty temperature and utilization graphs (for Windows only): http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
ATITOOL
It's not just for ATI. Has a card stressing feature.
Another program to note is something like: speedfan
I can't count how many times a problem was directly caused by high temperatures on the cpu, gpu, etc.
And one more tool which I keep in my toolbox:
Spacemonger
A quick run of it gives you a visual representation of the hard drive. I've fixed several problems by seeing that crap needs to get deleted.
Good luck!
I've slowly replaced every component in my system due to random crashes. Memory, hard drives, motherboard, power supply, video card and finally this morning the CPU. Each with a fresh OS install.
I'm left with either the case, or the DVD drive being the culprit - if it is the DVD drive, I'm gonna kill someone - most likely me...
Prime 95 is a good test of CPU/RAM, as well as to see if the system remains stable under peak temperature. It's often used to burn in overclocked machines.
If you notice that your lights dim a little bit when your fridge compressor or AirCon comes on, that is a recipe for a computer failure.
Why? Doesn't the computer's PSU have enough juice in it to survive a quick dip in voltage? Besides, almost all PSUs are rated ~90-260V, so I always assumed if it dips from 230V, it won't matter.
Occasionally my lights dim but I don't seem to have had problems. I'm still waiting for my decade-old P3 to die so it can be replaced by an Atom board, but the darn thing keeps on running.
It is a good start, but no more than that. Those tests are certainly not comprehensive (and should be). On the plus side, they often have your specific hardware in mind, and might possibly catch something that other tools wont. (doesn't happen often, but sometimes...)
SMART is also not the end-all of hard drive indicators. A drive can pass SMART, and still be on the way out. I've found (for those familiar with Linux) that a dd from the hd to /dev/null will often spit out errors on a drive that's getting ready to fail. A linear read is far faster than a read/write surface scan, albeit not as thorough. (can be run from knoppix live CD)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
So your solution is to pawn off the problem to someone else? Either your an ancient tech near retirement who is bored to tears with what he does or you never really loved this stuff to begin with. Unless I take glee in the idea that a particular individuals machine is broken because I despise them I'll help utter strangers fix their stuff just because its *fun* to figure out a problem. Helping the other guy and gaining their gratitude is a bonus. And yes I've been doing this for long enough that it isn't something I'll "grow out of".
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
You didn't mention the power supply.
In my experience, a "crashy machine" is almost always down to the PSU. Out of the dozens of "crashy machines" I've had to fix, only one was due to bad memory. The rest were *all* down to faulty power supplies, and all of those were due to capacitors that had failed.
I have an oscilloscope so I can easily test for ripple without needing to open up the power supply and look for the obvious signs (bulging capacitors, maybe ones that have leaked). We've had dozens of machines at work with supplies that have gone bad this way. Bad capacitors have been a real problem in recent years. Four years ago, it wasn't just in power supplies either - we had to return 70 machines to Hewlett-Packard under warranty after the capacitors on the motherboard began failing after 3 months of use. We've not seen anything on that scale on motherboards since, but we still have frequent problems with power supplies failing from "capacitor plague".
A machine of mine was actually killed by a sudden power supply failure - the PSU let the magic smoke out with a loud "bang", and there was the sound of stuff richocheting around the computer's case. That sound turned out to be bits of exploding chips on the motherboard. The only thing that survived that incident was the CD-ROM drive - all other components were destroyed.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
My shop uses it, works pretty well. A full scan can take up to 6 or 8 hours (we set up hardware diags before leaving for the night, and in the morning on a 24-channel KVM), but it is THOROUGH. VRAM, RAM, HDD, CPU, everything is tested and thoroughly. First step should be testing the PSU, then running QT.
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
Places like Maplin or Radio Shack sell PSU Testers. You plug it into the PSU, you get told if its out of spec.
But it will not test if you've bought a crappy low cost PSU which says its a 500W PSU and its really can only hold 400W.
I use a floppy disc test program called TuffTEST-Pro
http://www.tufftest.com/
It tests quite a few aspects of a PC.
* Configuration Function
o Current Configuration
o CPU Speed Test
o MMX Extensions Test
o BIOS Information
o BIOS Checksum Test
o Switch Positions ****
o System Memory Size
o Extended Memory Size
o Expanded Memory Size
o CMOS Configuration
o Edit CMOS settings ****
* Certification Tests (Quick System Check)
o Abbreviated System Test ****
o Extensive System Test ****
o System Board Test
o Math Coprocessor Test
o Main Memory Test
o Extended Memory Test
o Expanded Memory Test ****
o Diskette Drives Test
o Fixed Disk Drives Test
o Serial Port Input/Output Test ****
o Parallel Port Input/Output Test ****
* Parallel Port Tests (LPT1, LPT2 & LPT3)
o Interface (Signal Loopback) Test (uses TEST Plug) ****
o Send the ASCII Character Set to a Printer Test ****
o Echo the Keys Pressed to a Printer Test ****
o Monitor Handshake and Data Signals While Printing Test
o Monitor Status Signals from a Printer Test ****
o Data Test (uses TEST Plug) ****
o Control Test (uses TEST Plug) ****
o Interface Status Test (uses TEST Plug) ****
* Serial Port Tests (COM 1, COM2, COM3, COM4 & up to 64 user-defined port addresses)
o Internal Operations Test
o External Operations Test (uses TEST Plug) ****