Diagnostic Tools for Testing 2nd Hand Machines? 46
tom asks: "Buying second hand computers you always run a risk. I was wondering if the slashdot readers could suggest a toolbox of (preferably small) tools that you could take along with you on one or two floppy's so you could run some diagnostics on machines you would consider buying. I'm thinking of the checkdisks, benchmark programs, soundcard checks, USB checks etc."
Linux (Score:1)
Old DOS program called Troubleshooter (Score:2)
My suggestion is an ancient DOS program called Troubleshooter. (ts.exe)
It fits on a floppy, boots, tells you all sorts of stuff, including checking CD-ROM drives, multimedia, video cards, convergence and purity checks for monitors in various modes, everything.
Does memory, CPU, bus tests, hard disk tests.
The only problem is that it's older than Pentium MMX, and I've never seen a newer version. It identifies a Pentium, including the speed, but not MMX. I tried it on a 500MHz Celeron, and it told me that I had a 760MHz Pentium. I tried it on a 1.5 GHz Athlon and it told me that I had a 2500MHz K6.
It's less useful for IDing machines now, but it's still great for doing hardware tests.
Bootable Linux (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bootable Linux (Score:2, Informative)
Knoppix [slashdot.org], a feature-rich GNU/Linux distro that boots from and lives on a CD.
Re:Bootable Linux (Score:1)
Well now. (Score:3, Informative)
Good luck,
ZipSlack (Score:1)
memtest (Score:2, Informative)
Re:memtest (Score:1)
memtest86 (Score:3)
This will check the compuiter memory but may take a while.
Also you could LInux on a floppy or NetBSD/FreeBSD/Linux on a cdrom and see how it detects the hardware, by looking at the outputs of dmesg, and a few other things like that.
Re:memtest86 (Score:3, Informative)
If the CPU was bad the system would probably not boot. I have not heard of to many intel CPUs being bad, but I'm sure a
Re:memtest86 (Score:2)
0: 280187814 263632587 IO-APIC-edge timer
0 is the irq of the timer in this case and it is adual cpu system. ide usually sits on 14 and 15, etc.
look at /proc. the /proc/irq diretory has hte irqs as well, then there is /proc/scsi if you have scsi and there are files that tell vendor make and model of scsi devices.. there is whole lots of info here.
Re:memtest86 (Score:1)
Re:memtest86 (Score:2)
For other isa hardware dmesg is probably your best bet. If you compile a kernel with most isa drivers in it it would detect the isa card and should put in the /proc filesystem info on the card. In the case of none pnp isa cards you can look at the jumpers and see what irq they are at. If it is a sound card and it is an old soundblaster it is probably irq 5 or 7. NIC, are probably 7 or 11. Most older hardware may not have usb either so that may not be a concern. I'd probably take a boot floppy and a cd.
Oh and if you watch your computer boot up the screen that flashes for a second or two has ALL The info about your hardware. In fact just going into the bios will in many cases tell you your CPU speed , your hard drive size (use the detect harddrive option) and many other things.
I still say dmesg will tell you lots, even isa stuff.
MemTest86 (Score:1)
This is an memory tester that boots from a floppy. I use it frequently, and it works very well - a must-have for a testing toolkit.
Get a booting -from CD distro + Compile the kernel (Score:2)
If you manage to get a --on floppy or --on cd distro, make sure you have a compiler and enough room to extract the linux kernel sources, and watch out for signal 11.
Re:Get a booting -from CD distro + Compile the ker (Score:2)
gcc: Internal compiler error: program cc1 got fatal signal 11 [bitwizard.nl]
~$ damn. maybe he/she will follow that link and understand it, then.
sh: damn.: command not found
~$ exit
logout
Re:Get a booting -from CD distro + Compile the ker (Score:1, Funny)
make: *** No rule to make target `understand'. Stop.
Your brain - then some very basic tools (Score:3, Informative)
After that, there are some simple things you can do to find out what you're getting, assuming they'll let you test every unit. I've written some shell scripts the I've got in an initrd with busybox that I burned to a CD that tells you if the machine can boot, and if so, what hardwhere is in it. It looks for PCI devices, SCSI disks, IDE disks, memory... Basically any info you can pull out of proc. It formats it all nicely on a single screen, so you don't need to type anything, and you spend 45 seconds at a machine max. There's no need for a full OS with apps, or a bootable distribution. I have a single floppy version as well, but it won't find every SCSI device. If you'd like a copy, send me an e-mail.
Case and power supply is all (Score:2)
Others might quibble about testing the existing (small) hard drives, floppy drive, and CD-ROM, but I'd just count on trashing these items. They're cheap and plentiful new. Besides, if you're buying massive numbers of machines to administer in a giant cluster, you probably don't need or want any removable media on each machine.
Same goes for whatever existing motherboards might be in the machines. If they're a couple years old you'd probably have to go hunting around the net to find BIOS updates etc. to make them work with your peripherals. It's not worth the time, especially with decent new motherboards available for a half-hour's pay.
Well.... (Score:1)
Spin-Rite checks HD's
An older Norton Utilities (mid-90's) should do the trick for other items
Micro-Scope [millennium...ions.co.uk]tool kit works great for most anything you can think of
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Informative)
IBM -- Drive Fitness Test [ibm.com]
Maxtor -- Powermax [maxtor.com]
Western Digital -- Data Lifeguard Tools Utilities: DLGDIAG [wdc.com]
Seagate -- SeaTools [seagate.com]
Fujitsu -- Diagnostic Tool [fujitsu.ca]
NOTE: Some of these tools may work with all drives, but this (free) collection should cover quite a few drives.
DOS, the Diagnostics OS (Score:2, Funny)
Intel or other?? (Score:1)
Re:Intel or other?? (Score:1)
Re:Intel or other?? (Score:1)
SETI@home (Score:3, Insightful)
(>6 GB disk-space needed, though)
SETI will bring the CPU to the limit. If it's overclocked and/or badly cooled or otherwise unstable, you'll see that quickly.
The rest will stress-test your IO-capabilities
If it survives all that, then it looks like you can trust the system quite a bit.
Rainer
Re:SETI@home (Score:1)
If you're buying second hand computers, there's a good chance they might not be the latest and greatest. You might not have 24 hours to run SETI@Home. Swap meet, for example.
What if you can't connect to the internet to get a SETI data set? What if you don't have the hardware for installing Linux, KDE, etc etc?
Re:SETI@home (Score:1)
don't blame me for other people's points...
I did say "_if_ you have the time"...
My old P200MMX has got some heat-problems which are only visible after some hours of make world.
I haven't tried, but I guess a simple memtest86 wouldn't do here.
And if you buy @ebay, this whole article is useless, because you can't even touch the box until UPS or whoever has sent it to you.
So, yes, I assume he has some time on hand to actually test it.
Re:SETI@home (Score:4, Informative)
Just because SETI/RC5/etc push CPU usage to 100%, doesn't mean they fully exercise all the various units on the CPU, or even that they'll notice if a bit flips here or there.
Re:SETI@home (Score:1)
And if you don't quite feel like getting the computer after that, atleast you've done the owner a big favor (though they might not comprehend that right away, so prepare for a quick getaway)
Simple tests... (Score:1)
plain unix method: dd if= bs= of=/dev/null is nice for a simple read test. Watch for console error messages. ;-)
BTW, what I've found is that a lot of IDE drive errors result from bad cabling, not bad drives!
The CPU stab test from jv16.org is also quite nice,sadly needs windows...
*use a dozen or so known good disks ;-)
Re:Simple tests... (Score:1)
For old machines, use old software. (Score:3, Insightful)
Scrounge around the "sysinfo" and "sysutil" directories. There are a bunch of old utils that do what you're looking for.
There was a german DOS utility. I can't remember the name, but I think it was simply "config" (or was it "pcconfig" or "pcinfo"?). Anyway, that utility could identify damned near anything in a PC (CPU, chipsets, memory, motherboard, etc.) and it ran some diagnostics. I tried to locate it again for this post, but I couldn't find it. If anyone knows where it went...
Re:For old machines, use old software. (Score:3, Informative)
My Mini-CD Consists of.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Fresh Diagnose [freshdevices.com]
VNC server and viewer [att.com]
NessusWX [nessus.org]
Fresh Diagnose is an excellent benchmark/testing utility.
VNC is for accessing remote desktops (Great for lazy people such as myself)
NessusWX is a windows interface for Nessus security scanner. A must for checking default installations of any OS.
All the extra utilites are freeware. MS-DOS is of course copyrighted.
hth
Linux bootdisk ideas (Score:2)
I use the dnetc client (distributed.net) to tax the CPU.
autoruns (Score:2)
but the blarsted thing starts all this junk up when the machine boots! everything fFrom media players, to monitor controllers, to printer and scanner watchdogs, almost certainly some schedule apps, and maybe a couple virusscanners! untold ram is just being gnashed away by a string of programs sitting in the systray!
so, i always, when i go to look at a fFriend's new computer, take autoruns [sysinternals.com] fFrom www.sysinternals.com . conveniently shows every thing which is scheduled to boot fFrom anywhere in the registry or startup directory. lovely lovely app.
that, and a nice task manager (there are many available.) i like A.T.M. [tiscali.it]