Dear Ask-a-nerd: Computer "check up" programs?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My boss at Nissan originally worked on an IBM 1401 with 4K of RAM. When I worked for him we were running an MVS-ESA IBM 390 with 2 Gig of directly addressable RAM. He just could not wrap his head around it. He'd never seen a relational database either (we were running DB2). They needed a part-to-car DB, so I wrote a very simple SQL query to extract all part numbers for a particular model or all models that used a particular part number. He said "are you sure it will work every time"? Well, yeah, actually.

"As long as 1+1=2 is predictable, yes."

"Pass complete, no errors, press Esc to exit."

Do I want to let it run or bail out?

[klr]

My boss at Nissan originally worked on an IBM 1401 with 4K of RAM. When I worked for him we were running an MVS-ESA IBM 390 with 2 Gig of directly addressable RAM. He just could not wrap his head around it. He'd never seen a relational database either (we were running DB2). They needed a part-to-car DB, so I wrote a very simple SQL query to extract all part numbers for a particular model or all models that used a particular part number. He said "are you sure it will work every time"? Well, yeah, actually.

"As long as 1+1=2 is predictable, yes."

"Pass complete, no errors, press Esc to exit."

Do I want to let it run or bail out?

I take it you asked it to run just one cycle instead of continuous repeat when asked at the beginning? I don't know if you can do anything more now without rebooting.

I'd run it at least once more to rule out memory as the cause.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No errors. I'll run it again tonight before I go to bed and let it chug until dawn.

[Jason]

It's been years, but I used to use Sisoft Sandra a lot. Let it run the 'burn in' test for a day or two. Any weak components will fail.

[laklak]

It's been years, but I used to use Sisoft Sandra a lot. Let it run the 'burn in' test for a day or two. Any weak components will fail.

They're not "weak", they're "differently abled".

[klr]

No errors. I'll run it again tonight before I go to bed and let it chug until dawn.

Yup, that's the best strategy. If it cycles through for a few hours and nothing turns up, you can discount RAM as the problem.

That just leaves everything else.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No errors. I'll run it again tonight before I go to bed and let it chug until dawn.

Yup, that's the best strategy. If it cycles through for a few hours and nothing turns up, you can discount RAM as the problem.

That just leaves everything else.

Time to save the gas cap and get a new car?

[klr]

No errors. I'll run it again tonight before I go to bed and let it chug until dawn.

Yup, that's the best strategy. If it cycles through for a few hours and nothing turns up, you can discount RAM as the problem.

That just leaves everything else.

Time to save the gas cap and get a new car?

Hell no. You could always try and re-install Windows for a start. A bit of a drag, but it's an option.

If this test runs all night, it's a sign that the basic hardware is OK, although it still leaves an awful lot of things to look it. It's not testing the hard drive or the graphics adaptor for example.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think the problem is with the graphics adapter anyway. It freezes with I run Palemoon. Flash keeps crashing. Videos are problematical.

Anybody got a free tester for the GA?

[klr]

I think the problem is with the graphics adapter anyway. It freezes with I run Palemoon. Flash keeps crashing. Videos are problematical.

Anybody got a free tester for the GA?

Hmmmm ... that doesn't necessarily imply the fault is with the graphics card. I still have problems myself with Firefox, which rarely starts properly first time, and often has to revert to "safe" mode. But I don't blame these problems on the graphics card, despite the fact that I've had to disable the monitor power down option in the screen saver settings to stop the PC from sometimes crashing.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think the problem is with the graphics adapter anyway. It freezes with I run Palemoon. Flash keeps crashing. Videos are problematical.

Anybody got a free tester for the GA?

Hmmmm ... that doesn't necessarily imply the fault is with the graphics card. I still have problems myself with Firefox, which rarely starts properly first time, and often has to revert to "safe" mode. But I don't blame these problems on the graphics card, despite the fact that I've had to disable the monitor power down option in the screen saver settings to stop the PC from sometimes crashing.

I don't get "safe" mode, I regular and increasingly lengthy freezes. If I touch nothing when it freezes it will come back eventually. But the more I click, the longer it takes to respond.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And anyway, I have to check something next if the memory's okay.

[klr]

I think the problem is with the graphics adapter anyway. It freezes with I run Palemoon. Flash keeps crashing. Videos are problematical.

Anybody got a free tester for the GA?

Hmmmm ... that doesn't necessarily imply the fault is with the graphics card. I still have problems myself with Firefox, which rarely starts properly first time, and often has to revert to "safe" mode. But I don't blame these problems on the graphics card, despite the fact that I've had to disable the monitor power down option in the screen saver settings to stop the PC from sometimes crashing.

I don't get "safe" mode, I regular and increasingly lengthy freezes. If I touch nothing when it freezes it will come back eventually. But the more I click, the longer it takes to respond.

That definitely smells like a software issue ... possibly in conjunction with hardware that is in of itself, fault-free. It could be a wrong or corrupted driver, it could be a problem that Flash has with this card (no fault of the card) ... and so on.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It worked fine for two years.

[Jason]

If I had to hazard a guess I'd utterly contradict Kevin and say you have a faulty capacitor either on your mobo or graphics card which is fucking up your buffering. Mobo seems most likely.