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Here's what would be ideal:

  1. A list of all the hardware components potentially found on one's computer
  2. A method (or list of methods) for testing each of these
  3. The accuracy of these methods

My personal requests are:

-How to test your motherboard
-How to test your wireless receiving apparatus
-How to test CD/DVD-RW drive
-How to test your laptop battery
-How to test your Heat sink(s)?
-How to test the effectiveness of your fan(s)

Favorite answers: OS-independent tests which GUARANTEE the concerned hardware works PERFECTLY

Service Desk Bunny
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Shawn
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3 Answers3

4

No test suite can guarantee that anything works perfectly, they can only tell you if the computer passed the tests.

This Live-CD does some of it, I have never seen anyone test the CD/DVD or wifi. But any live-cd meant for ordinary use should allow you to test that manually.

StressLinux

StressLinux is a minimal linux distribution running from a bootable cdrom (LiveCD) or via PXE. Stresslinux is dedicated to users who want to test their system(s) entirely on high load and monitoring the health.

Features:

  • stress 0.18.1 (A tool to impose certain types of stress on a POSIX system.)
  • CPUBurn 1.4 (CPU maximum load (heat) stability test)
  • CPU Burn-In 1.00 (CPU burn-in test)
  • nbench 2.2.1 (CPU test suite)
  • iometer 2003.12.16 (I/O performance meter)
  • hddtemp 0.3beta11 (A program to display the temperature of your hard drive.)
  • lm_sensors 2.8.7 (LM78 and other hardware monitor drivers.)
  • busybox 1.0.0rc3 (Single small executable which contains common UNIX utilities)
  • lshw A.01.07 (Hardware lister)
  • bonnie++ 1.03a (Hard drive benchmark)
  • netio 1.23 (Network benchmark)
  • smartmontools 5.32 (S.M.A.R.T. drivetests)
  • x86info 1.12b (CPU information)
  • memtest86 3.1a (A stand-alone memory diagnostic)
  • memtest86+ 1.15 (An other stand-alone memory diagnostic)
Nifle
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  • actual homepage: http://www.stresslinux.org/sl/ – sml Aug 16 '10 at 10:50
  • @scott - updated url – Nifle Aug 16 '10 at 11:16
  • @Nifle Are there any risks to the hardware associated with using stresslinux? For example, could pushing my CPU to the limit possibly break the CPU or melt any surrounding part? – Shawn Aug 16 '10 at 20:44
  • @Shawn - No. What it can (in theory) do is push any partly defective part far enough so that it fails completely. It can't destroy or harm a functioning computer. – Nifle Aug 17 '10 at 16:05
  • @Nifle So if I suspect some parts of being defective, should I run the tests? – Shawn Aug 17 '10 at 21:24
  • @Shawn - That's what I'd do. What tests and for how long is up to you. I have only done a few hours test but If I was to sell the computer I'd probably do a more thorough test, perhaps run it over night or so. – Nifle Aug 17 '10 at 22:56
  • @Nifle - Is there a way to tell it to simply "run as many tests as possible and tell me about the results in the morning"? – Shawn Aug 18 '10 at 20:38
  • @Shawn - I have *No* idea. I have not done stuff like this for oh.... more than five years. Just download the iso, burn it and play around with it. It's not going to break anything. – Nifle Aug 18 '10 at 21:32
2

If money is no object the PC Doctor testing suite is pretty damned good. It's pretty damned expensive though...

Shinrai
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1

Or a very easy way: go to a computer store and pay a small sum, and they will do this test for you. If all else fails, download a simple tuning program which can typically give the computer a test.

If you have a HP computer they normally have a POST test and some diagnostic tools built-in to them, telling you if something fails. AKA the S.M.A.R.T test for hard drives.

Gaff
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Martin W
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  • POST and SMART are completely different things. The first is run only once at each startups (and takes seconds), the other is a monitoring performed during the whole lifetime of the HDD. – Dmitry Grigoryev Jul 23 '15 at 06:35