• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

PC DIAGNOSTIC 4-Digit CARD Motherboard POST Tester

W

wolfie

Experienced Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2009
Messages
187
Location
ontario
Whatever you do--don't believe them when they say it's okay if you insert it into an ISA slot backwards--it'll blow most southbridge chips if you do.
 
I've used one like that before. The catch will be knowing the code for your motherboard/BIOS (ideally it has a book that goes with it or a webpage that you'll probably want to save locally). It's a mixed result using these. If something is bad and the motherboard is working well enough it will most likely beep out the diagnostic error code of the problem in the first place (video card is loose, bad/missing RAM, etc). If it CAN'T do that then you can use one of these but the problem I found was most of the time it was an error on an integrated part of the motherboard that's bad, so although I like having one of these I rarely found anything that I could actually fix using this card.

Now if I had a PROM burner and some more advanced gear and felt like replacing surface mount electronics then maybe. I agree though for the price and the fact it does ISA or PCI it's not a big loss. I should be fair though I only used this mostly on Pentium->Pentium III era systems and perhaps on a real computer without riser card goofiness it would be cooler and let you know that a certain non-integrated controller is bad.
 
thanks for the responses. i will most likely be using it on P1's or older. i am hoping it can help me trouble shoot and get a couple of my 486 mother boards up and running and keep them that way because some days i swear i miss some of the most obvious problems.

edit: i will try to not put it in backwards or upside down
 
Last edited:
Far any motherboards that are newish the only fixable thing on them is bad capacitors, everything else is a custom surface mount chip that is not worth the effort to replace unless you have a stack of them and SMD tools.

For old stuff where they use common logic chips etc those boards are kind of useful. Basically I use my diagnostic card to seperate something fixable from something that needs recycled.

The people who do not want to fix capacitor related motherboard issues will have a stack of dead machines in the next 10 years (especially old macs).
 
i had a newer computer that had some bad capacitors and i replaced them and the computer worked for about six month and then i put it in another case it quit working. maybe i could try fixing that computer with it. the old case was too small and i had acquired a bigger MDG case that i would be able to put the power supply inside of instead of having it sit on top of the case because it was too big to fit behind the 5 1/4 drives.plus i'm suppose to be getting another mother board that is the exact same in a few months when my sister gets her computer upgraded so the other mother board may eventually have the same problem. i know my sisters computer always seems slow and she seem to have more problems with it than i did when i was using it as a server
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top