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Looking for a good motherboard diagnostic application (OEM Compatible).

Is there a recommended application that can perform diagnostics on motherboards made by OEM manufacturers? We have a few systems that are having issues and we only have a memory testing and CPU testing utility both of which found no issues. We have even replaced all of the drives - but are still getting frequent freezes. The operating system has also been re-installed on a newly formatted drive.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

nobus

the best testers i know are micro 2000 -find all info here : http://micro2000pcdiagnostics.com/

you can try their POST card -but it's pricey - 499$

or pc-doctor http://www.pc-doctor.com/

you can also run http://www.passmark.com/download/index.htm Burnin test

regarding the freezes - when do they occur? random, after a certain time, or with a certain program?

if heat is suspected - install speedfan to monitor the temps : http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Poly11

ASKER

The PC freezes at random times, especially when video is being viewed. I removed the video card and switched over to the onboard video, however each time video is viewed it still freezes. When video isn't being viewed the system works fine, but will freeze after 12 - 24 hours. It's a really annoying issue and I may just replace the motherboard, but first wanted to see if there's something out there that can tell me what the problem actually is.

I'll take a look at the links and get back to this post in the next day. Thank you for your response!

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nobus

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corower

try running some flavor of linux, it gives much more detailed error logs in /var/log/messages. if something is "soft-failing" you might get some traces there. however, if you can not get a POST code reader card - you really will not be able to look deep into what's happening on your hardware.
also, problems might be heat-related (like microcracks on motherboard or welding under some chips), or general electricity-related (condensers, stabilisers) - these are not easy detected by any software, and hardware solutions usually are custom-crafted. also bad connections might get loose by time.

in your case i would start with another really important component - a PSU. get a good one (like 200-300 watt in excess of what your typical loads are) for your test rig, and put a good 2kVA online UPS (with good sinewave output) between wall outlet and your PSU. that should at least attenuate any electricity-related problems, and you could concentrate on heat. run a continuous stress test, while your motherboard is in your test rig, look for heat at unusual places and at usual places (cpu, ram, video), too. this should give you at least some clues.

nobus

Poly - how is it going? do you need more help?

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dbrunton

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nobus

you can also install another - free- OS on the drive like Ubuntu www.ubuntu.com
that also shows if the problem is hardware - or soft

Poly11

ASKER

Thank you. It appears that it was the motherboard. The ulimatebootCD is good as well.

Thanks agian.

nobus

tx for feedback