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?"
Maybe if you got your head out of the clouds and realised that 185 CHF (~180USD) is what the vast majority of people on this planet would regard as a pretty reasonable WEEKLY wage, you wouldn't think that advice like "well its only $1000 to replace, so just throw it away" adds anything to this conversation. For a significant percentage of the Slashdot demographic maybe we could call it daily, but doesn't really change the issue. I wonder if you have ever considered what happens to the thrown away item, which is likely to be 98% functional, even though its an antique 3 year old piece of hardware. You might consider that there are billions of people out there (not only in some third world dustbowl) for whom this would be a treasured item and who might be interested to find an easier (and more economical) way to regain that 2%. Believe it or not, some of us are even interested in salvaging that last 5% from really broken boxes, before we add them to the to the massive stinking junk-pile of this disposable culture.
"But hey, maybe i'm just to negative about this. Maybe you can enlighten me how you can sort out these issues."
For you I would suggest taking a year of your life to sort out these issues and go somewhere. Go wander the earth for a bit. Go see undeveloped, developing and developed countries. Meet normal people. Rich ones, poor ones and ones doing ok. Do some work that you aren't trained in. Escape your bubble. When you get back home I can pretty much guarantee that the only negativity you will feel is toward your old attitude and those that still share it. You will suddenly have a great appreciation for the immense privilege you live in and be in awe of the planet around you. And maybe even helping out a less knowledgeable friend won't be just an annoyance anymore.
It gets recycled by SWICO http://www.swicorecycling.ch/.
The cost for that is included into the price of buying a new device.
Ah well, unfortunately i'm not old money and can't afford a year without a job.