Overall we were not very impressed with the windows
version of AMIDiag for several reasons. It does have a rather useful "trouble
ticket" application built in where all important information about a system can
be collected and emailed to a service center. The trouble ticket is very
detailed and should help any computer service rep identify major problems
quickly. Apart from that the GUI is a little primitive and not something we
would expect in commercial software. I'm sure as AMI develop their software the
look and feel will improve greatly.
On the other hand, the DOS application is right up
AMI's alley (looks like a BIOS GUI). In the DOS application, since Windows is
not present there is a much wider range of tests which can be conducted. Where
the Windows version is more about information gathering an reporting, the DOS
version is almost entirely about various hardware tests.
I must say that after looking at the Windows
application I was not expecting too much from the DOS version, but was
pleasantly surprised to see a very useful set of tools. The tests range from
identifying problems with keyboards, mice, video displays, and well.... all
these:
- CPU Tests
- Memory Tests
- BIOS ROM Tests
- Multi-Processor Tests
- System Board Tests
- SMBus Tests
- SCSI Device Tests
- IDE Hard Drive Tests
- IDE CD-ROM Tests
- IDE DVD-ROM Tests
- ATAPI Tapes
- ATAPI, LS120, ZIP Drives
- Floppy Disk Tests
- Modem Tests
- ISA Sound Card Tests
- CardBus Controller Tests
- COM Tests
- Parallel Port Tests
- Integrated Sound (Intel Chipsets)
- Network Tests
- PS/2 Keyboard Tests
- Video Tests
- ACPI Tests
- SMI Tests
- USB Tests
- System Information
The main differences between this and programs like SiSoft Sandra are that no
benchmarks are performed. Most of the test are along the lines of go-no go, and
just report a pass or an error code.
The error codes can be looked up in a booklet which comes with the software.
For example if we tested out memory out with some less than perfect RAM modules
we might get a message like this: 0180h - wrote the pattern qqqqh at
address xxxxxxxxh. The pattern read back from that address was pppph. With
this knowledge we could check the book and see unfortunately that we should
really just replace the RAM.
For those of you in the position of testing and diagnosing problems with computers on a day to day basis, software like this could be a very useful addition to your tool box.
RSS Newsletter
