Suggestions for POST Diagnostic Cards? 37
antis0c asks: "I have a number of PC's of mine, and family that have stopped working, or caused other odd unknown failures such as 4 different harddrives, different brands, all becoming physically damaged in the same computer. General fixing is as easy as removing some hardware until the problem goes away, then putting it back until it comes back, thus narrowing down to the single problem hardware. However more tricky problems require a POST Card. I've never purchased one before and I think I could get more use out of older hardware if I did, and I was wondering if the Slashdot community had any suggestions and comments on the various brands out there such as POSTmortem, MSD PostCodeMaster, and PC Engines. Thanks."
Get the first one (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, it's just too easy.
POST (Score:4, Funny)
If you can pick up one of these, you'll save yourself tonnes, because POST midgets are cheap, reliable and they feed and clothe themselves. Mind you, when they get bored they start to play with your hardware, so remember to keep a cattle prod close by.
So which brand to get? Choose one that's polite, friendly, doesn't smell to bad (it can get hot in there, people, and they don't like having cooling fans strapped to their heads) and knows his shit. There's nothing worse than a POST midget who insists that "Houston, we have a problem. The red light is flashing" whenever you read data from the hard disk.
The single biggest cause of problems... (Score:3, Informative)
The single biggest cause of problems in a computer system that was once stable is bad connections. Just open up the case, pull out all connectors and adapter cards a few millimeters, and push them back. That cleans the contacts.
Re:The single biggest cause of problems... (Score:3, Funny)
If the board is breaking harddrives. I say get a PCI IDE controller and stop using the onboard IDE controller.
Re:The single biggest cause of problems... (Score:1)
Don't be silly! You aren't allowed to use logic!!
Re:The single biggest cause of problems... (Score:2)
The mysterious jumping hardware virus is where you start swapping in known good parts to find the bad one and when you return the known good part to its original home it doesn't work anymore and it cripples something else in its original home and the problem just hops around from machine to machine and doesn't go away until you have disassembled every computer you own or have access to and tried every possible combination of parts until you wind up with everything back in the original configurations, at which point, if you haven't fried anything with static (or re-installed a bios chip backwards) or broken some plastic part of a connector or flexed a wire once too often, everything works again, with you none the wiser as to what caused the original problem.
Sometimes the mysterious jmping hardware virus jumps species and disables VCRs and other non-computer electronic stuff and they don't start working right again until you've done a bunch of unplugging and replugging of them and gone through everything to get the computers working agian as well.
Capacitor disease causes slow failures and can result in permanent destruction jumping from part to part and machine to machine.
Re:The single biggest cause of problems... (Score:1)
Stabilant is a good product. (Score:2)
Re:Stabilant is a good product. (Score:1)
Not to mention charges as much for it as liquid gold...
Anything I should know about how it is used? (Score:2)
Re:Anything I should know about how it is used? (Score:1)
Basically, I mostly use it on edge connectors of PCBs (for computer cards). I've found this combination gives the best results:
- Use a pink rubber eraser and "erase" any of the worst gunk from the connector. If it's really bad, use an abrasive pen eraser.
- Clean the eraser from the contact with 100% isopropyl alcohol.
- Dry off the alcohol (or let it evaporate) and apply stabilant somewhat liberally with a q-tip.
- Leave the stabilant on the card and insert it, and leave it.
Works like a charm for a lot of things. If I can get some for home I'm going to try it on those worn-out pots in my nice old H/K 430 receiver.
It's really expensive though. Something like $1 per ml so it had better be worth your time using it!
Done business w/ PC Engines (Score:5, Informative)
That said, I have no idea how well it works, or what the delay is now that he's moved. But I'd vouch for his good guy status, and he's shipped other high quality parts to me.
The actual part is so deathly simple, it should just read I/O port 80 and put it on an LED, so I can't imagine there is a bunch of difference in quality, but that's just me. Last time I needed one, the hardware engineer in the cubie next to me just hooked up his logic analyzer and 2 minutes later I had the post code.
Kirby
POST Code Master (Score:5, Informative)
A nice touch is that the card will monitor voltage rails and test its own LED segments.
I also had the opportunity to meet the developer of the card - a nice guy.
Re:POST Code Master (Score:5, Informative)
(I am not the seller - this is how I bought mine).
Four hard drives die in the same PC? (Score:3, Funny)
This is creepy (Score:2, Funny)
And, how are we related?
Re:This is creepy (Score:1)
However this guy seems to want to do something about it, wonder in which family-member he's going to stuff the POST-card...
Video Card (Score:2)
Re:Video Card (Score:3, Informative)
Mind you, it's not worth fixing the old stuff anymore - not when whole systems cost less than a game console.
Which PC is that? (Score:1)
not when whole systems cost less than a game console.
Now I'm curious. What make and model of PC with TV output costs less than $150, the US price of a GameCube console at Wal-Mart or Toys "Ya" Us? And unless Wal-Mart or Best Buy brick-and-mortar stores sell them, include shipping.
Do It Yourself (Score:5, Informative)
The famous german c't Magazine [heise.de] has instructions how to build a very simple ISA-based POST card, using only two GALs, a two-digit seven segment LED display, and 15 resistors. You can buy the programmed GALs at eMedia [emedia.de] (order code 9503314PAL, 9,50 EUR, roughly the same in US$). The full article is available online [heise.de] for 0,40 EUR. (If you create a new account, you will get 1,00 EUR to play with. So basically, it is free.)
I built one POST card myself, and I never leave home without it. ;-)
Landmark's Kickstart IRQ (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, just a few months after I bought the card the manufacturer dried up and blew away. Now I need a PCI equivalent and haven't seen one out there.
heat (Score:3, Informative)
Is this really what you're looking for? (Score:3, Funny)
So, what your really looking for are POST cards from the edge [imdb.com]?
No thanks required. No, really.
Ultra-X boards are pretty good. (Score:1)
POST Cards (Score:3, Informative)
Not worth the money (Score:5, Insightful)
RAM problems can be a lot more annoying to diagnose IMO, while the times I've used POST cards, I either haven't learned anything from them, or I've gotten conflicting results from repeated uses.
Re:Not worth the money (Score:2)
If bad ram is preventing you from booting, well, then it should be pretty obvious which stick is bad.
Any with memory? (Score:3, Interesting)
You can buy an HP logic analyzer on EBay and program them to do PCI decodes and record POSTs. The deep throats and the new wizbang color models are still very expensive but you can get one that will work for well under a thousand.
I debugged the Linux kernel boot process on an embedded box with POSTs and an HP logic analzyer. One you get some hardware geek to set it up for you it's a slick way to work on that kind of stuff.
Re:Any with memory? (Score:1)
Which model analyzer do you use, and what is your setup?
Re:Any with memory? (Score:2)
For other things I've had it wired up to NMI and some other lines, just monitoring edges.
How do the PCI ones work? (Score:2)
My latest MB (MSI KT3 Ultra) has a built in post display feature. I like that because it's my first board with no ISA slots.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Piss poor logic! (Score:1)