Hardware Diagnostics

Sunday, October 29th, 2006 | Tech Help

If you have ever had a PC suddenly crash, freeze up or spit out the dreaded blue screen of death you probably thought that your operating system was the cause. In some cases, you would be right, but in most cases the problem lies with your hardware. Before taking your PC in for service there are a couple programs you can run on your PC.

Memory (RAM): Memtest86 is a great little program to test your memory. The site has in-depth instructions on how to use the program.

Hard Drives: Most of the major hard drive makers have free programs you can use to test your hardware.

These programs can either be copied to a floppy or a blank CD.

Try these programs the next time you are having system lockups, at the very least they will exclude your memory or hard drive as the culprit.

Tags: hard drive, hardware, memory