[Sussex] Hardware diagnostic tools

[Paul Tansom]

To date in my IT career I've not had any need for much in the way of
hardware diagnostic tools. When working at IBM there were a few internal
tools, then a smattering of AMIdiags, HD manufacturers own test tools
(all re-badged versions of the Ontrack tools!), Memtest, etc.. At the
moment, however, I have a machine that is irritating me majorly, so I've
started looking around at what is available, what it does and at what
prices.

So AMIdiags is still around, but looking rather old. I've also started
looking at things like PC Certify, one from Trinitech and there's
Microscope for Micro2000, and Sandra from SiSoft, etc. etc. I've not
found huge amounts of Linux/open source stuff though - Memtest, CPUburn
and a couple of others.

So, does anyone have any recommendations in this area. The sales pitch
on the Microscope package goes well, but many of the commercial packages
are pretty expensive, so it would be nice if I could find someone with
experience of one or more. Ideally there would be an open source package
or selection that I could run from a Linux boot CD (hmm, must take a
closer look at the Linux BBC!).

Basically it has to boot off a CD (or diskette possibly, but they seem
pretty small these days!) so it can bypass the OS and test all the
hardware (CPU, memory, HD, graphics, etc., etc.).

OK, running out of steam tonight. Hopefully that makes sense!

-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com