🚀 go-pugleaf

lio@ornl.gov (MILLION D L) writes:

>I received, I bought Checkit V3.0 from Touchstone.  It seems to be a
>fairly extensive set of diagnostics--it does memory, CPU and co-processor,
>disk drives, serial and parallel ports, mouse, video, and so on.  It also

One thing we've found with Checkit is that it has never correctly
identified/diagnosed/found any problems with any machine which has come
into our area with some kind of 'operational difficulties'.
Particularly in the area of memory testing.  Machines would come in with
sporadic parity errors, or sporadic hangups which would eventually be
resolved by replacing some or all of the memory.  If checkit would run 
at all, it was virtually guaranteed to say the memory was perfect.

AMIDIAG (from the BIOS-makers...) does a lot better at finding memory
errors, but it is a lot more clumsy to use, and limited in what it tests.

THE KIT from Supersoft is massively overpriced and overrated.
It is copy protected, relying on a specially damaged floppy as a key.
This 'protection' has often prevented it from running at all on 
semi-stable ailing systems we were attempting to diagnose.

Its memory test has located defective memory in quite a few cases.
However, of all the goofy things, when one selects 'Do ALL of the
aforementioned tests' and specifies an iteration count, the iteration
count applies to each test rather than to trips through the loop,
and the program pauses for confirmation to proceed to the next test!!

We certainly haven't stopped looking for good diagnostic utilities
(ones that tell you something you didn't already know), but have
given up on finding a single program/package.   We've got a box full
and hop from one to another depending on the perceived nature of the
problem...

kk