PCA Forums

anyone ever used a PCI diagnostic card? i never heard of them and just rely on the (now common) built-in digital displays and such for error codes.

http://www.meritline.com/mini-pci-diagn ... 95793.aspx

for older mobos, this could be a cheap, useful upgrade...??

Ya, they have been around for years, even ISA versions. Only problem is these cards require the motherboard to actually work

Never used to be that cheap though!

Never used one. Seen them at tech convensions, but too expensive for me.

I've never had one that I couldn't diagnose without one. Though, I suppose it could speed things up.

but too expensive for me.

$3.95 in the link above but I've never needed one either.

That one's pretty much worthless. Not going to tell you much more than the beep error codes.

The ones I looked at for my business had self-contained CPUs and would even diagnose a mobo with a dead CPU. However they were $100+

I find less worry about a dead CPU, CPU failures are pretty remote, and normally fail from simply overheating which there are physical signs of. The QA of CPUs is just that good. The error codes is still useful, even if its basic. Better off then trying to decipher the beeps. That is what I loved about the one Epox motherboard I had, as it would show the error codes on the board itself.

The only more common way a CPU would fail was back in the old days of jumpers if you set it wrong and fried it with too much voltage.