PC Hardware testing/fault diagnosing

[PaulMThomas]

Hi Guys

I got a couple of PC's at work (Dell) with random problems, what software can anyone recommend for complete hardware testing and diagnosing problems?

Seeing as we have 70+ PC's here (Mainly laptops) I don't mind purchasing something if its going to be reliable and helping to find problems.

Thx in advance.

 

[DrB0b]

Personally on the free side, if you are looking for a mostly all in one CD, I would recommend Ultimate Boot CD. It has good RAM testing, multiple hard drive manufacturer's testing, and a bevy of other testing utilities.

There is also Hiren's but considering there are 2 questionably "legal" copies of software in the new version, I don't recommend unless in a pinch and need something UBCD doesn't offer.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[rclarke250]

Most Diagnostic Software has to be taken with a grain of salt. Meaning there is no one piece of software that will always definitively point out the failing piece. Now as for Diagnostics I like a couple of tools in the Ultimate boot disk (google it,it's free). For testing hard drives and system memory. I use an external power supply tester to test power supplies, which will be beyond most people and even small companies, as I do a load test, and scope the output with a Oscilloscope on lines I can't verify as 100% good. System boards and Cpu's are a little more tricky, If capacitors look good, The only real way to "test" is to swap the suspected part with a known good one. There are some diagnostics that will test registers, and other parts but if you are dealing with a system that has a intermittent issue, these will likely not help. A good way to stress a system is using a package that has a system load or stress test, if you are having an issue finding one, Prime95 will work in a pinch to run a system very hard, also Futuremark has some benchmarking utilities that will stress a system.

 

[DrB0b]

Toast is a good stress/overheating tester for single to multicore CPUs. Advise having a temp monitoring software in place while running. Run a new instance for each core for maximum burnination.

http://majorgeeks.com/Toast_d867.html

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[PaulMThomas]

Its interesting, because there are loads of software suites coming up in Google when I search for hardware testing and also bench marking.

Finding reviews for any of them has proved difficult tho....

 

[goombawaho]

Usually Dell provides some diagnostic software either built into a bootable partition and accessible if you hit F12 when booting the PC

OR

via downloading from their support site. Use your Service Tag to get right to the downloadables for your model.