My Diagnostics Procedure: Test Up To 20+ Computers A Day

[PCX]

Disclaimer: Unless you are on-site, there is no reason why you should not run a full hardware diagnostics before every repair. Not doing so is just stupid. Software issues can easily be caused by hardware failure, so why would you immediately start troubleshooting software issues before ruling out hardware failure? Even if you are on-site, you should be running a series of short tests before troubleshooting software issues.


First, you need to be able to test several hard drives at once while running other tests on each individual computer. If you are interested in how to set something up like this you can PM me. I will give you a hint, you can do it with Linux and gsmartcontrol.


1. Unless the computer is an AIO desktop or a laptop that requires complete disassembly to get to the HDD, then immediately take out the hard drive and slave it to your HDD diagnostics box.

2. Start memtest86+ on each computer. Tests need to be run for at least 8 hours or 6 passes. If the memtest fails, then you test each stick of memory separately to find the bad stick. If each stick of memory passes, then one of the slots could be bad. Take the good stick of memory and test that slot. If that slot passes, then more than likely either one of the sticks of memory is no longer able to support dual channel or the motherboard or CPU is no longer able to support dual channel. The quickest way to determine that is to get another set of good tested dual channel sticks of memory and test them in the original computer. If they pass, its the memory, if they fail, its the MOBO or CPU.

3. After each memtest, run a MOBO, CPU, GPU test. I use PC Doctor.

4. PSU: I use a PSU tester as well as a good PSU to swap out for a second opinion. PSU testers are great for quick results, but it wont always catch intermittent issues.


Thats pretty much it. Once you rule out these things, you can start troubleshooting software issue.


If On-Site:

If you are on-site, here is my recommendation.

1. Slave the hard drive to a laptop that is either running Linux from a USB or to a laptop with an additional SATA bay. If 3.5, then it will need an addition power supply.

Note: SMART tests typically cannot be run via USB. USB controllers that support it are still not very accurate.

Do a short test and check for bad sectors. If it passes those first tests, then run an extended test for about 10 minutes. What does not pop in a short test will often times pop in the first few minutes of an extended test. Those will typically be read errors.

2. While running the HDD test, run memtest86+ for one pass. More than likely, if its a memory failure that you are dealing with, you will see it in the first pass. With that being said, in shop environment, do not neglect this test and only do one pass; more subtle errors will be found passed the 5th pass. One error is enough to cause a lot of problems.

3. The alternative to running memtest86+ for one pass is to run PC Doctor test 4 and 5. This will test the MOBO, CPU, GPU, and memory.

4. Linux live cd: This will help you to narrow down and issue to software or hardware. This is not an end all diagnostics, so do not rely completely on this. You have to keep a few things in mind.

- Linux does not run, nor does it crash or react to hardware failure in the same manner as Windows. Typically, Linux can hold up to hardware failures better than Windows.

- Things that are good to test in a Linux environment: network, sound, video, ports, DVD drive, etc.


Final Note: These are not diagnostics, if you say that you use these things in place of a diagnostics, I WILL call you out on it.

chrystaldiskinfo: This is a HDD monitoring tool meant to be used over a period of time. It only displays SMART data and past failures, it does not run diagnostics tests.

chkdsk: This is also not a HDD diagnostics. I am not even sure why anyone would even think that it could be considered a diagnostics.

Windows Memtest: While yes technically speaking this is a diagnostics too, its also technically junk. Use a real memory diagnostics like memtest86+

Load Test: While these are great to run to test stability or check for overheating issues, it is not a diagnostics. It will not in most cases pinpoint failing hardware.

Live Linux CD: While a Linux Live CD is a great way to narrow down certain issues, Linux is not a diagnostics tool in it self, nor does it crash or react to hardware failure in the same manner as Windows. Typically, Linux can hold up to hardware failures better than Windows. This means, that things like memory, CPU and MOBO issues may not show up the same or at all on in a live Linux environment. Also, while booted into a live Linux environment, you are not using the hard drive, thus you will not see any issues unless you actually test it or unless it is severely failing and the live Linux CD has a HDD monitoring system like Ubuntu.

- Things that are good to test in a Linux environment: network, sound, video, ports, DVD drive, etc.


I think I got a great majority of the things I hear the most on the forum . . .

 

[iisjman07]

Out of curiosity, why don't you use your PC-Doctor to test hard drives & memory? I might post my diagnostic routine later if I get the time...

 

[PCX]

Out of curiosity, why don't you use your PC-Doctor to test hard drives & memory? I might post my diagnostic routine later if I get the time...

Because its not as accurate and because you can use memtest86+ and gsmartcontrol at the same time for each computer. With the PC Doctor you can only test one computer and perform one diagnostics at a time. My method allows you to do several tests at once so that you can test more computers in a shorter period of time.

 

[HCHTech]

How do feel about PC-Check?

 

[PCX]

How do feel about PC-Check?

To be honest with you, I do not know. I have not used it, but from my understanding its much like PC Doctor and the limitations are also that you can only use it one PC at a time running one diagnostics at a time.

 

[14049752]

Personally, I prefer to just put PC-Check in a number of systems (requires a license to do that, of course.) and work on something else while the testing is in progress. You can script it to run tests and specify how many passes, etc. Pulling hard drives to test in another system would waste a considerable amount of time.

 

[PCX]

Personally, I prefer to just put PC-Check in a number of systems (requires a license to do that, of course.) and work on something else while the testing is in progress. You can script it to run tests and specify how many passes, etc. Pulling hard drives to test in another system would waste a considerable amount of time.

Takes me less than a minute to pull most hard drives . . . With my method you also do not need to pay for several licenses and it would get pretty expensive to test up to 10 or 20 computers at the same time or your turn around time would suffer. I cannot speak for PC Checks accuracy.

 

[FoolishTech]

Personally, I prefer to just put PC-Check in a number of systems (requires a license to do that, of course.) and work on something else while the testing is in progress. You can script it to run tests and specify how many passes, etc. Pulling hard drives to test in another system would waste a considerable amount of time.

Takes me less than a minute to pull most hard drives . . . With my method you also do not need to pay for several licenses and it would get pretty expensive to test up to 10 or 20 computers at the same time or your turn around time would suffer. I cannot speak for PC Checks accuracy.

Not speaking to the rest of the post (honestly I didn't read it) only skimmed a few of the comments, but....

about pulling HDDs....

On my bench systems I have something like 18" IDE and SATA cables laying out. (They aren't always easy to find, but usually can be found in places where more server components are sold, as some servers actually need the length.) So all I need to do is pop the side of the case, position it relatively close to the tech bench machine, and attach the cable. No "pulling" HDDs out of the case is needed! That way you can run your HDD and RAM scans simultaneously.

Also, PCX, as much as you push full h/w diagnostics in every thread, maybe you should make that verbiage in your sig link to this post, so you can easily point it out in the future to the noobs.

 

[14049752]

Regardless, pulling or not, testing the hdd with another machine requires....another machine with appropriate controllers, etc. Honestly, that's about the same price as a license for PC Check..maybe more.


I'd rather leave the drive in the system instead of having several of my own machines sitting around for testing hard drives. I don't have the space for that...I have a few workstations and a few data backup machines that I'll sometimes test drives with.

If you're testing 20+ systems, as your title says...well, that's maybe four or five systems just for testing hard drives by my estimation

 

[PCX]

Regardless, pulling or not, testing the hdd with another machine requires....another machine with appropriate controllers, etc. Honestly, that's about the same price as a license for PC Check..maybe more.


I'd rather leave the drive in the system instead of having several of my own machines sitting around for testing hard drives. I don't have the space for that...I have a few workstations and a few data backup machines that I'll sometimes test drives with.

If you're testing 20+ systems, as your title says...well, that's maybe four or five systems just for testing hard drives by my estimation

I am not going to give you my trade secret on an open forum, but if you want to know how to do this with my setup for about the same price as 1 PC Check license, then PM me.

The one thing I will note is this, each hard drive takes between 2 to 4 hours to test unless it fails immediately. That means you can do about 2 or 3 rounds of hard drive tests in a day.

 

[kevinjhaag]

Great Post, PCX. Its exactly my procedures that I use most times. Other than I use different tools for hdd diagnostics and for mobo, cpu, gpu. I've been testing out gsmartcontrol on occasion tho.

 

[PCX]

Not speaking to the rest of the post (honestly I didn't read it) only skimmed a few of the comments, but....

about pulling HDDs....

On my bench systems I have something like 18" IDE and SATA cables laying out. (They aren't always easy to find, but usually can be found in places where more server components are sold, as some servers actually need the length.) So all I need to do is pop the side of the case, position it relatively close to the tech bench machine, and attach the cable. No "pulling" HDDs out of the case is needed! That way you can run your HDD and RAM scans simultaneously.

Also, PCX, as much as you push full h/w diagnostics in every thread, maybe you should make that verbiage in your sig link to this post, so you can easily point it out in the future to the noobs.

Not a bad idea, although, I do think that will get messy really quick and it does not exactly sound like a suitable solution for several computers.

As for the sig, great idea, I will do just that if you think it will help others.

 

[iisjman07]

I mainly use PC-Doctor for the following tests:

• Hard Drive SMART (SMART check and short self test)
• Hard Drive Surface
• Memory
• Motherboard/CMOS
• Video Card (only if done from within host OS; I usually do it from winpe)

and manually check:

• Fan Functionality (check the fans are free of dust and check the thermal paste isn't too crispy)
• Power Supply
• Power Socket [laptops]
• Capacitor Check

Order of Routine goes something like this:
First thing I normally do when I see a machine is pop the side off, clear out dust/crap, check the fans and capacitors, then boot up a winpe disk (any old windows vista/7 installation dvd will do fine), insert flash drive with tools on, normally image the hard drive with ghost and then run a PC-Doctor diagnostic script. If I'm ever on-site (which is hardly ever) then I'll skip the hard drive image and run a quick script for PC-Doctor which does the same as the one above but only briefly tests the memory and only does the short self test and a quick seek test on the hard drive (total ~10-20mins).

I also have a copy of BurnIn Test which can be used to test a machine under strain, and it has a nifty 'rebooter' tool which can auto-reboot a machine X number of times.

 

[Benchtech]

If it's a desktop I also check for bulging, and exposed capacitors.

 

[PCX]

I mainly use PC-Doctor for the following tests:

• Hard Drive SMART (SMART check and short self test)
• Hard Drive Surface
• Memory
• Motherboard/CMOS
• Video Card (only if done from within host OS; I usually do it from winpe)

and manually check:

• Fan Functionality (check the fans are free of dust and check the thermal paste isn't too crispy)
• Power Supply
• Power Socket [laptops]
• Capacitor Check

Order of Routine goes something like this:
First thing I normally do when I see a machine is pop the side off, clear out dust/crap, check the fans and capacitors, then boot up a winpe disk (any old windows vista/7 installation dvd will do fine), insert flash drive with tools on, normally image the hard drive with ghost and then run a PC-Doctor diagnostic script. If I'm ever on-site (which is hardly ever) then I'll skip the hard drive image and run a quick script for PC-Doctor which does the same as the one above but only briefly tests the memory and only does the short self test and a quick seek test on the hard drive (total ~10-20mins).

I also have a copy of BurnIn Test which can be used to test a machine under strain, and it has a nifty 'rebooter' tool which can auto-reboot a machine X number of times.

If it's a desktop I also check for bulging, and exposed capacitors.

Thanks guys, I forgot to mention the actual physical inspection portion of the diagnostics. I am also glad you guys are telling us your methods, it will help to give everyone something to think about.

 

[NETWizz]

That is all well and good, but what do you do when the customer comes in and pays you $49 to install a Blue Ray burner, or $49 to install Office 2010 and provides you the media? What if the customer says Firefox or Google Chome won't start up due to a problem with the extensions???

^^^ Do you do a hardware diagnostics for all these?

Me I would..

1. Install the drive in 5 minutes and if it had fancy, value-added software install it simply to appease the customer.

2. Install office 2010

3. Delete the browser profile.


Obviously none of these are hardware problems. I am not saying there might not be an underlying problem just that it isn't necessarily on the work-order to troubleshoot and analyze the entire system.

 

[PCX]

That is all well and good, but what do you do when the customer comes in and pays you $49 to install a Blue Ray burner, or $49 to install Office 2010 and provides you the media? What if the customer says Firefox or Google Chome won't start up due to a problem with the extensions???

^^^ Do you do a hardware diagnostics for all these?

Me I would..

1. Install the drive in 5 minutes and if it had fancy, value-added software install it simply to appease the customer.

2. Install office 2010

3. Delete the browser profile.


Obviously none of these are hardware problems. I am not saying there might not be an underlying problem just that it isn't necessarily on the work-order to troubleshoot and analyze the entire system.

Absolutely, every single time. I cannot count the number of times that customers have come in with a computer that had a software related issue and it was caused by failing hardware. I have also had several other customers come in for things like you described above and then I found that their hard drive was also failing. What are the advantages to this?

First and foremost, it covers your butt in the case the customer bring home their computer and then all of the sudden their hard drive dies. Well that obviously had nothing to do with you, but try to explain that to the customer.

What if they lost all their data as a result?

Secondly, you are looking out for the customer. Why should the customer invest so much money into a machine that is about to crap the bed? Most shops around here fix the obvious issues only to leave the customer hanging on the rest . . . which from an unethical (IMHO) stand point is a great business practice, because hopefully they will come back to them for the next repair.

In most cases, I have customers thanking me that I did not take advantage of them and that I told them everything up front, instead of wasting their time and money.

Lastly, diagnostics leads to more work. They can lead to more services and repairs or data transfers if they decided to buy a new computer instead.


Besides, how long does it really take to do this.

1 - 2 minutes pulling the hard drive and staring the test
1 - 2 minutes booting into memtest86+
1 - 2 minutes to start testing the MOBO, CPU and GPU with PC Check and PC Doctor

Sure, all in all it takes about a day to complete, but you spent maybe 5 to 10 minutes max in most cases to start the tests. Can you not afford 5 to 10 minutes of your time to take care of your customer, eliminate hardware failure out of the equation of software issues, and lastly make more money in the end?

 

[Jeffreynya]

I agree with Netwizz. Some jobs just do not call for that type of work. Maybe if you have the spare time and have nothing else to do you can do it but I would rather get the job done and get the PC back to the customer.

It’s the same for remote work. Do you do a hardware check with all the scans you can do remotely before you fix their issue.

Now if you suspect there may be hardware issues then by all means check it out. And if you think the HD is having issues and going, I would first backup the data before I run any tools on it. the more strain you put on a failing driver the more the chance that it could fail during your test and now you very well may have a issues getting to the data at all. Once you have the data, run all the test and visual inspections necessary.

 

[nightkingdoms]

If a client comes to me with a specific demand, they get exactly what they ask for. If I run into anything while doing it, I'll tell them and give them an estimate. I will do most of the things that others have said if they give me a system they don't know what's wrong and it's something I've seen before and can fix right away.

 

[PCX]

I agree with Netwizz. Some jobs just do not call for that type of work. Maybe if you have the spare time and have nothing else to do you can do it but I would rather get the job done and get the PC back to the customer.

It’s the same for remote work. Do you do a hardware check with all the scans you can do remotely before you fix their issue.

Now if you suspect there may be hardware issues then by all means check it out. And if you think the HD is having issues and going, I would first backup the data before I run any tools on it. the more strain you put on a failing driver the more the chance that it could fail during your test and now you very well may have a issues getting to the data at all. Once you have the data, run all the test and visual inspections necessary.

I already answered your question about remote and onsite work in my OP. Obviously you have to do things differently. And again about the time it takes, I have already addressed that in the above post. Sure it takes a day to complete the tests, but it really only takes about 5 to 10 minutes of your physical time.

Please do not mistaken this for something that should be done if you have spare time, this is something that NEEDS to be done as a procedure. We do not have spare time, we are slammed and we have a minimum of 2 to 3 day wait. If you have a minimum of a 1 day wait, then why not at least run these tests overnight?