Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (
More info?)
Diagnostcs:
1. MEMTEST-86, best memory tester available. Great price. Free. Also
determines processor speed and speeds of cache and RAM with decent accuracy.
May have some glitches with Intel 845 and 865 integrated graphics. I need to
follow up. NEVER had a client complain about memory after running MEMTEST-86 on
either a new computer or a memory upgrade. MEMTEST-86 has smoked out lots of
incompatibilities between motherboards and memory, and some just plain bad
memory sticks.
2. Hard drive manufacturers' diagnostics, not Micro$oft SCUMDISK. The
manufatcurers' diagnostics are the more or less the same as used at the factory
for burn-in and to recertify. They run close to the bare iron, without layers
and layers and layers of Windows software in the way. Hitachi (also IBM),
Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate, Fujitsu all have free downloads of their hard
drive diagnostics.
AIDA-16 and AIDA-32 to provide a fairly accurate diagnosis of the hardware
inside a computer, i.e. identification of chips, cards, and other incidental
hardware. Using this software is a lot easier than being a chiphead who reads
the fine print on all the chips inside a computer. But if you know how to
interpret the fine print, there is no better way to determine what makes a
computer go. Problem is that many chips are covered up by bonded-on heat sinks,
which make exact chip identification possible without damaging a board.
3COM and Intel both provide diagnostic and test software with their NICs, a good
reason to use them, and no other brand. D-Link, Netgear, Relisys (just chips)
and all the other late entrants in the NIC business provide no diagnostics for
testing a card to see if it is even working, so why use them? 3COM is
essentially out of the commodity NIC business, but their cards are still going
strong.
CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, and DVD-RW. No diagnostic tests per se, although an old
program called CDBENCH works pretty well as both a benchmark cum diagnosis. I
write a DOS-based CD-ROM benchmark program many years ago for Ziff-Davis and PC
Magazine, back in the day when 2x, 3x, 4x, and 6x CD-ROM drives were hot stuff.
First test: Does a Win 9x install floppy see the drive, and read from it?
Second test, burners only: Does your favorite CD or DVD burning package actually
burn a disk properly? The second test assumes that the drive is supported by
the burning software. There are OEM versions of CD/DVD burning packages that
work only with the mobo BIOS of a given brand or with a specific brand of drive.
Third test: Get closer to the metal either burning disks with Linux or with a
Windows port of a Linux package + CYGWIN (for example Easy Burning or CDRTools).
Sound cards? I dunno. The diagnostic test is usually binary. Install the
drivers for the sound chip and test using the Windows Control Panel and play an
audio CD. If you hear sound, the card passes the test. Sound card benchmarks?
Talk to Bose.
Tape drives? Most tape backup software packages include diagnostics of both the
drive and the media.
Any other hardware worth diagnosing?
Benchmarks? I could write a book about benchmarks and my experiences over the
last 40 years designing, conducting and interpreting benchmarks. But the book
would be so damned boring that it would sell maybe 3 copies, all to my nearest
relatives... Ben Myers
On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 02:49:01 -0600, "personalpages.tds.net/~rcsilk"
<dick_silk@antispam.gov> wrote:
>both. but diagnostics -- yes, the dell diags cd or boot diags work best for
>dells, and I have most of those anyways. Only the dell diags aren't that
>friendly to other systems. Benchmarking is more interesting in the long
>run, when you're finally able to compare esoteric things like ram
>performance and drive throughput -- at a glance.
>
><ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in message
>news:41b92fa1.15010619@nntp.charter.net...
>> Do you want to do diagnostic testing or benchmarking? They are very
>> different.
>>
>> ... Ben Myers
>>
>> On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 02:03:37 -0600, "personalpages.tds.net/~rcsilk"
>> <dick_silk@antispam.gov> wrote:
>>
>>>I haven't used any benchmarking software in years -- since the '95 era.
>>>Does anyone know of a FREE, quality diagnostic / benchmarking program to
>>>test system performance and RAM status? (For use with Pentium I level
>>>processors to the present.)
>>>
>>>Silk.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
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