Hardware diagnostic software - Intel/Windows

[Jim Laumann]

All

I've got a HP system at home which is 4 yrs old, and beginning to have "issues"....has trouble booting, or crashes (blue screen) and then has boot issues. Running Win 7. 10M real memory, and a 1.5Tb drive, and a AMD processor.

Anti Virus (Kaspersky) is up to date and indicates the system is clean. Problem started approx. two weeks ago, and is intermittent.

I'm looking for a recommendation on some hardware utilities - one which I can exercise the drive and memory - which seems to be the likely candidates.

Thanks

Jim

[Brian Hale]

Windows has a couple built in you can try

Open windows Explorer
Right click the drive in question and choose properties
Select tools

Should be 3 different tolls to try if I remember correctly

......... That's where I'd start

Brian

[David Bassett]

If the built in stuff doesn't solve your problems, search for Memtest86 (or Memtest86+, I haven't kept track of their politics.) Get the most current from a reputable download site and run it over night. It is designed to test your memory, but has the reputation of beating up your CPU, cache, etc. pretty well too. It won't tell you anything about your disk or about the state of you OS install ("bit rot", etc.) but can id or fairly conclusively eliminate memory problems.

[Dan Hintz]

If the built in stuff doesn't solve your problems, search for Memtest86 (or Memtest86+, I haven't kept track of their politics.) Get the most current from a reputable download site and run it over night. It is designed to test your memory, but has the reputation of beating up your CPU, cache, etc. pretty well too. It won't tell you anything about your disk or about the state of you OS install ("bit rot", etc.) but can id or fairly conclusively eliminate memory problems.

I'll second this one. Memory rarely fails, but when it does, flakiness is a direct result. I have had two systems slowly go belly up due to bad memory chips.

[Jim Matthews]

Not for nothing, but have you vacuumed the interior of your PC in four years?
Heat is the mortal enemy of discrete electronics.

Dust traps heat.

[Larry Frank]

I agree that heat can cause a problem. But I would not vacuum due to potential static issues. Instead, you can use canned air to blow dust out . Be careful if you have a fan on the cpu, as you can damage the fan or fins with too hard a blast.

Hopefully, you have previously backed up your computer.

[Myk Rian]

Not for nothing, but have you vacuumed the interior of your PC in four years?
Heat is the mortal enemy of discrete electronics.

Dust traps heat.

Not to mention cat hair. Do you have pets?

[Curt Harms]

I've used compressed air. Just don't go nuts - set the pressure to what seems reasonable. Use a pen or something to hold the fans still. You could alternate memory sticks - sometimes simply reseating will fix random issues. Memtest X86+ is good but I don't know that it would check for connector issues. Disconnecting and reconnecting drive cables won't hurt either. I've had problems with the wide IDE ribbon cables in the past, I don't know that the narrow molded SATA cables would be prone to connector problems like the ribbon cables were.

[Curt Harms]

not to mention cat hair. Do you have pets?

tech_support.jpeg

[Jim Laumann]

Update....

No pets in the house....so no hair other than human

System was backed up FRiday night and current, until last night, when wife insisted she had to look at email.

Our last system had a memory stick go bad, we got all kinds of crazy dumps/program failures for weeks. Sent them all off to Microsoft w/ a tool Win XP had. Microsoft finally spotted something which said to them 'bad memory'. They provided a downloadable memory test utility, ran it, it spotted the bad stick - got it replaced, no more problems. Hence the reason I asked about it...

Cleaning out the dust - good thought - will do so.

Can reseat cables, etc.

Chkdisk is running as I key this - been running since about 7.45 last night - its about 50% done (stage 5 - cluster check). Stages 1-4 reported no errors.

More tonight or tomorrow....

Thks

Jim

[Pat Barry]

Update....

No pets in the house....so no hair other than human

System was backed up FRiday night and current, until last night, when wife insisted she had to look at email.

Our last system had a memory stick go bad, we got all kinds of crazy dumps/program failures for weeks. Sent them all off to Microsoft w/ a tool Win XP had. Microsoft finally spotted something which said to them 'bad memory'. They provided a downloadable memory test utility, ran it, it spotted the bad stick - got it replaced, no more problems. Hence the reason I asked about it...

Cleaning out the dust - good thought - will do so.

Can reseat cables, etc.

Chkdisk is running as I key this - been running since about 7.45 last night - its about 50% done (stage 5 - cluster check). Stages 1-4 reported no errors.

More tonight or tomorrow....

Thks

Jim

Our test technicians frequently used a hot air gun to locally heat areas of the computer board, cables, etc to force problems as a diagnostic tool or alternatively blast areas with cold (freeze spray). The idea was to find a sensitive spot to help localize further investigation. This can help isolate a bad circuit area and point you to a possible conenctor or solder joint problem (yes - they can/do go bad over time)

[John Huds0n]

Run the system file checker and see if any critical files are corrupted
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to...indows-7-vista

Here is a free utility that will really stress the hardware. You can check the graphs to see if the cpu is overheating for example and check the power output of the power supply
http://www.ocbase.com/

Check your event viewer
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...#1TC=windows-7

[Myk Rian]

I've had high dollar power supplies cause those problems.

[Dan Hintz]

I've had high dollar power supplies cause those problems.

This, too... lost two to this in the last 5-6 years. Doesn't really give me much confidence in the "high-end" supply manufacturers :-/

[Chuck Wintle]

I agree that heat can cause a problem. But I would not vacuum due to potential static issues. Instead, you can use canned air to blow dust out . Be careful if you have a fan on the cpu, as you can damage the fan or fins with too hard a blast.

Hopefully, you have previously backed up your computer.

i will second this recommendation...canned air and carefully blow the dust from the cpu fan, th e power supply etc. what I ahve noticed about canned air that it gets very cold quickly so i tend to do short blasts so i do not freeze any component of the computer.