Choosing which Hardware Diagnostic suite to buy?

[nelsonm]

HI all,

I've been looking at post regarding commercial Diagnostics suites. I'm interested in getting some package but i'm not sure which one to get or whether to just stick with my open source freeware diagnostics tools.

On the commercial side there's:
- PC-Doctor Service Center (PC-Doctor, Inc.)
- Pc-Check (Eurosoft)
- PC-Diag Professional PC Diagnostic Software Suite (PC Diag Inc.)
- MICRO-SCOPE (Micro2000)
- (List others if you know any....)

On the open source side there's:
- Hiren's Boot Cd
- UBCD
- UBCD4Win
- Manufactures hard drive tools
- All the assorted memory, motherboard and so on... tools listed on technibble's computer repair tools page and the old technibble tool kit.

BTW, I love Dell's diagnostic utility. It's the first tool i use when i get a pc in for repair to rule out hardware issues. It has a nice simple interface that allows you to run all or individual tests, but it does not boot on all non-Dell systems.


I wonder if the commercial products listed above use any of the open source programs we already use?

 

[14049752]

The main advantage of the commercial testing suites is that you can script them a little easier than your freeware individual testing tools.

I use PC Check and i have several different scripts for testing hardware overnight, for burn-in testing or for a regular diagnostic. I know that I could easily do the majority of stuff with free/open source, but having it all in one place and loading a single script is nice. It's also nice to have one final report that you can show to your customer, if need be, to show that things passed or failed.

 

[Martyn]

Anyone else using PC Service Center? It does nice reports on screen but you only have the option to save as html or txt. It would be nice to be able to create a pdf from within the program unless i'm missing it?

 

[nelsonm]

Anyone else using PC Service Center? It does nice reports on screen but you only have the option to save as html or txt. It would be nice to be able to create a pdf from within the program unless i'm missing it?

You can always use any of the free pdf creating apps like CutePDF Writer to feed the text file into. But i won't look like the nicely formatted screen report.

 

[nelsonm]

Did i mention i love Dell's Diagnostic utility!

I download the latest one every chance i get.

 

[Martyn]

You can always use any of the free pdf creating apps like CutePDF Writer to feed the text file into. But i won't look like the nicely formatted screen report.

Yes I realise that but it would be neat to do it within the program. the html looks nice on screen but is a problem printing. You could print to pdf but it is a bit of extra work to do that with each pc. It's shame because the reporting is good.

 

[Alan22]

Did i mention i love Dell's Diagnostic utility!

I download the latest one every chance i get.

It's a product of PC-Doctor

 

[nelsonm]

It's a product of PC-Doctor

Get out of town!

Is PC Doctor's interface and functionality like Dell's or is it made custom for Dell?

They probably use a subset of PC Doctor's functionality and a custom interface for Dell's utility.

 

[iisjman07]

Another program you should look at is called 'quicktech'

 

[Martyn]

From their website

Service Center is the most complete and accurate hardware diagnostic kit on the market. Based on the same PC-Doctor diagnostics used for years by OEMs like HP, IBM, Lenovo, and others to save time and money, Service Center provides an unparalleled level of quality and hardware assurance. After identifying hardware issues using the PC-Doctor diagnostic tools and completing repairs, Service Center verifies that the problems are no longer present.

http://www.pcdservicecenter.com/index.php

 

[nelsonm]

Every commercial site will say that!

 

[iisjman07]

PC-Doctor(R), the remote diagnostic technology leader, today announced that its technology is now shipping on select models of Dell's notebook, desktop and server product lines.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_20050229/ai_mark01020075/

 

[nelsonm]

This refers to to Dell's internet based support solution, Resolution Assistant. It has nothing to do with their built in diagnostics partition or downloadable diagnostics utilities. And all the articles are circa 1999.

 

[Martyn]

Yes I realise that but it would be neat to do it within the program. the html looks nice on screen but is a problem printing. You could print to pdf but it is a bit of extra work to do that with each pc. It's shame because the reporting is good.

I've been looking into this. As far as I can see the only way of printing your report is to install your print driver(and remove it) or install a free pdf writer which could stay installed on the machine. That was you can create a pdf and leave a copy on the desktop or copy it to the PC Service center dongle for printing on your own computer. Free ones are pdfcreator and cutepdf both try to install extra bits, you have to deselect them.

 

[Alan22]

Get out of town!

Is PC Doctor's interface and functionality like Dell's or is it made custom for Dell?

They probably use a subset of PC Doctor's functionality and a custom interface for Dell's utility.

I really don't know. I spoke with PC-Doctor sometime last year when I was considering a purchase of their product. In one of the conversations they brought up that the diagnostic partition on Dell computers is actually their software.