Diagnostic computer

hurfdurf · 27 Dec 2009 at 21:30

I am constantly being asked by my family and friends of the family and all of their friends on top of that to fix there computers. As such my parents have said they will purchase me a new computer to use as a diagnostic computer, to test the bits on other computers to see what works and what doesn't.

Does anyone have any ideas on what is going to be the best kind of build for this, from testing the latest and greatest computers I have built for kids ordered from here to computers bought premade and filled with cheapo rubbish purchased elsewhere?

Ollie83 · 27 Dec 2009 at 23:33

Well your going to have decide wether you are gonna test mainly intel or amd chips firstly. You can buy mobos which support both ati crossfire and nvidia sli so no worries there.

Even if your family and friends you exclusively intel products you would then have to decide wether to get an i5, i7 or older mobo. Cant really see how you'd get what you need with only one mobo tbh.

You dont really need a case as you can build it and run it out of the case reasonably safely. An old cheapo monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers set up ready to go would be helpful.

hurfdurf · 28 Dec 2009 at 00:33

Apart from testing the mobo and processors, is there a mobo out there that can test everything else? RAM, PSU, Graphics card etc etc.

Memphis · 28 Dec 2009 at 00:39

You can't buy a "one size fits all" solution for what you're talking about. There are just too many different types of everything to cover them with 'one' machine.

PhillyDee · 28 Dec 2009 at 00:44

As said, Even ram is DDR, DDR2, and DDR3. Not including SDRAM or similar older stuff. Difficult to check for compatibilities. Even graphics cards you have AGP for older and PCI-E. CPU there are at least a dozen variety of sockets. Even so, not all boards support all of that flavour of processor.

PSU - You can buy a bog standard tester, but that doesnt check actual rails and loads. You can buy a spare PSU as a basic check. Hard drives would be easy to check, as you can do it with basic utilities on pretty much any modern board with an IDE slot.
And dont even get started about laptops . . . . I actually have a 'loan' PC. If people need a PC, I can take theirs and leave them with the loaner. At least they can do bog standard Internet stuff.

J.B · 28 Dec 2009 at 10:35

When I used to fix computers I had a stock pile of older stuff for different RAM and CPU.
Alternatively it might be easier to buy some 'stock', so you have a spare stick of DDR, DDR2 etc and a spare 775 and 939 socket CPU.

Jason1973 · 28 Dec 2009 at 15:01

J.B said:
When I used to fix computers I had a stock pile of older stuff for different RAM and CPU.
Alternatively it might be easier to buy some 'stock', so you have a spare stick of DDR, DDR2 etc and a spare 775 and 939 socket CPU.

+1

You are bound to get too wide a variety of systems to have just 1 test machine.

A load of known working and cheap spares will give you the all the info you need to replace faulty components.

If you get a faulty PC with SDRAM recommend a new build, cheaper than an upgrade and a lot faster.