General Questions

• Pc-Check is telling me that my 'Product license is invalid'
  In order for Pc-Check to run the system requires USB plug inserted into a functioning USB port. The computer will also require the correct system date.
  

• I am unable to detect the latest PC components.
  In order to be able to detect and test the latest PC components, please ensure that you are using the latest version of Pc-Check. If you are currently using an older version, please contact us to purchase an upgrade.

• The serial port of my PC is failing on the FIFO test.
  Some versions of the I/O chip manufactured by Winbond exhibit difficulty in receiving data at 115,200 baud. Since the primary uses for PC serial ports is for mice or external modems, in practice this speed is rarely achieved for received data and the device will operate normally

• I would like to test a second CD-ROM/DVD drive, but Pc-Check only offers my first drive.
  Due to commercial considerations, the Pc-Check CD-ROM/DVD tests were only given the ability to test the first detected device. Future versions of Pc-Check will be able to test more than one device and will also feature several enhancements to this area. When used interactively, there is a work around; use the ATAPI menu to select the second CD-ROM/DVD device, however you will still only be able to record a single set of results.

• Pc-Check has gone into 'Safe Mode', why?
  Check that you have not applied the write protect tab to your Pc-Check disk. Pc-Check must be able to write to the floppy disk or it will default to safe mode. Alternatively, the last time the program was run, it did not, or was not allowed to complete loading for some reason. Safe mode is provided as a second chance to run Pc-Check with reduced functionality when it has difficulty loading on a system due to it's afflictions or compatibility problems.

• To what level does Pc-Check test the internal cache?
  The Pc-Check Cache Test tests all levels of data caching from the highest external level down to cache level 1. The cache memory is exercised to the same depth as the extended memory is when tested.

• How do I make my PC boot from drive A:
  Switch off your PC
  Turn the PC back on and press DEL or F2 depending on what BIOS you have
  Go to Advanced Options
  Change the boot sequence to A: then C:
  Save the settings
  Reboot your PC

• Why does Pc-Check use its own operating system?
  There are a number of good reasons why fault finding diagnostics need a custom dedicated low-level operating system:
  The simple ability to be started; The demands of a full Operating System installation are extensive, if there is a fault with the system, an OS as demanding as Windows may fail to start, making it impossible to run diagnostics designed for that operating system and so to locate the fault quickly.
  To minimise the load on the system; If a system is suspected to be faulty, diagnostic software must impact lightly on the resources so as not to trigger faulty behavior until it can be isolated to a specific sub-system and test.
  To separate hardware issues from software issues; The PC may be exhibiting faulty behavior that appears to be hardware based, but may actually be due to corrupted operating system/ driver software. By operating independently the diagnostic can help indicate the correct path for investigation.
  To avoid virtualisations; Modern operating systems and processors permit the virtualisation of hardware from the software application viewpoint. That is to say that software performs those actions that would normally be required to access a hardware device, but these are being trapped and given expected responses. Hardware abstraction of this type is a key part of OS such as Windows NT/2000 (the HAL - or Hardware Abstraction Layer) and can be a major obstacle to diagnostics which must access real hardware to find real problems. This is a concept similar also to emulation - a diagnostic running under an emulation would serve no purpose than to show the strength of emulation!
  To avoid synchronization problems; Although arriving somewhat late to Windows (95), most OS use pre-emptive multitasking kernels. While for most tasks, even those of diagnostic testing, this can be a very useful facility, once again the diagnostic needs a controlled environment to avoid incidents were other installed software may not correctly enter critical sections or request shared resources. Such conflicts result in intermittent false failures. Similar issues affect timing where hardware devices must be accessed within strict tolerances. If a diagnostic has it's own environment, you do not need versions for each OS - versions, which may not even be available or are out-of-step.

• How can Pc-Check help with ISO or other quality assurance requirements?
  When testing PCs for quality assurance procedures, a hard copy document is needed to support the administration efforts during PC assembly. The document must then provide a circular method for tracking and back tracking all shipments, problem reporting and customer support. Pc-Check diagnostic software provides a printed, verifiable test record (document) of all PC hardware it tests before shipment or distribution of PCs takes place. Along with its fourteen-year program maturity, the report is one of Pc-Check's basis for supporting standards programs such as ISO900(0) requirements.
  Loading Pc-Check on to the PC at the early stages of assembly allows a manufacturer to test and explore all the areas of a PC's hardware for quality and operation. When its tests are completed, Pc-Check then extends support to administer records with a printed summary of its findings. One report can be kept for internal records while a copy of the report can be sent on to customers with a bundled version called Virtual Pc-Check. Distribution channels, service groups and end-customers then have 'proof' of when, where and what PC was built. When customer services calls come in, Virtual Pc-Check's program verifies if failures or service are required. The report copy acts as the backtracking record - a full circle completed.

• Is it possible to put Pc-Check on to a CD?
  Yes, it is. There are a couple of points to watch out for;
  Because CDs are not writable media (in the regular sense) some things need to be planned before burning a disc:
  
  You can choose to make a bootable CD from an image of a regular Pc-Check self booting disk, it you do this you can run either all tests interactively with results viewed on screen, or a preconfigured burn-in that you have created yourself. Note that in addition to the display, results can be sent to the first parallel or serial port - LPT1 (PRN) or COM1 (AUX).
  To be able to write results to media, you need to provide a MS-DOS or compatible boot environment. Depending on the DOS chosen and partition type used, this would permit writing to hard disk. Third party tools are available that permit writing to NTFS file systems.
  Remember that if your hardware needs command line switches you need either need to include a CMDLINE.TXT file on the CD (Eurosoft self boot) or to include them in AUTOEXEC.BAT (DOS). Alternatively, for 'one-off' situations in DOS, use a bypass key to get to a DOS prompt (typically F5 or F8).
  Should your Pc-Check start in 'Safe Mode' when run from CD, you are running a dated version and should consider an immediate upgrade.

CMOS

• Why is my PC failing the CMOS Read/Write test?
  Many BIOS included solutions for the year 2000 update problem. For some motherboards this solution interferes with testing of the CMOS on dates from 1 Jan 2000. Pc-Check was updated to avoid this in release 4.54a. Alternatively the CMOS memory may be faulty.

• Why did my PC fail the CMOS alarm test?
  Some Motherboards deviate from the standard AT specification and either have the alarm turned off in the BIOS, or not physically linked to the motherboard interrupt controller. An evaluation of this problem showed that this does not have an affect in normal use and so should not considered a failure. From release 4.60, Pc-Check still tested alarm functionality but it was no longer a requirement to be able to trigger an interrupt event.

Graphics Cards

• I have a graphics card with 8Mb of on board memory, why does Pc-Check only show it has 4Mb?
  Pc-Check determines how much memory a graphics card has from the VESA information it reports. If only 4mb is returned in the VESA information, then this is all that Pc-Check will be able to identify, even if more memory is present on the graphics card. Typically this memory represents that used by the 2D part of your graphics subsystem. Whether integrated or separate, 3D memory components used for the buffering of textures etc. are typically not identified. This issue is being investigated for future versions.

Burn-in

• After performing some scripted burn-in, Pc-Check stops at the menu and I don't get any or all of my results.
  If you are using scripted burn-in run automatically at boot, you must not only include the script name in the cmdline.txt (or explicit command line) but must also include switch /BD - 'Back to DOS' - which will tell Pc-Check to exit on completion and to close all open files.

Main Board

• My Main Board uses an Nvidia chipset and I am finding it is failing the System Timer 2 test.
  On the Nvidia chipset, Timer 2 behaves subtly different from all other PC's, this is not known to cause any problems in day to day use but is a genuine design fault. Eurosoft does not wish to compromise quality of testing. Further consideration as to how to handle this issue will be given in a future release of Pc-Check.

CPU

• When running the multiple processor tests one of processors is failing the Symmetry test?
  Symmetry failure may be because one CPU is either of a different revision - check CPU signature value while selecting between CPUs or it may occur because a 'slave' CPU is running too slowly due to factors on the motherboard.

• I have a Cyrix processor in my PC which fails MMX testing, what does this mean?
  While it could mean that the MMX processor unit is faulty, it could simply indicate that the Cyrix processor has been set up with the wrong speed settings (clock or multiplier). The MMX unit is often the first test to fail should the processor be overclocked.

• When testing the processor it failed the FIST test, what does this mean?
  This is an erratum on the Pentium Pro and Pentium II Processors. An Erratum is a design or error, which may cause a product to deviate from, published specification. The conversion of the floating point number to integers is required by some applications, however, due to the larger range provided by the floating point number representation, some numbers may be too large to fit within the range of the integer values to which they are being converted. When an application attempts such an invalid conversion, the hardware should return a uniquely defined value and signal this "exception" condition. The erratum in the Pentium Pro and Pentium II processors is that the hardware returns the expected value, but may not signal the exception in all cases.

• Why does Pc-Check show my Cyrix processor to be running at a slower rate than it should be?
  Pc-Check measures and displays the actual internal oscillator (or crystal multiplier) speed (MHz) rather than the PR rating given by the Processor manufacturer. A PR rating is generated by running benchmarks and is supposed to indicate to what equivalent performance the processor will run as compared to it's equivalent Intel part.

• I have a multiple processor system but Pc-Check does not detect the second processor or hangs up.
  This was confirmed as a Pc-Check problem and was corrected in version 4.60.

• I have a laptop with a Portable Pentium II, but Pc-Check reports a Celeron.
  Celerons were released as an 'economy' version of the equivalent PII/ PIII processor, just as Xeons represent a 'deluxe' version. Intel produced large numbers of variations on especially the Celeron, some of which identify themselves in the same manner as the processors from which they were derived. The detection algorithm used in versions 4.54 was not sufficient to always correctly separate all the different variations, although some improvement was made in release 4.54b. Versions 4.60 and above had the necessary additional detection required.

Hard Drive

• Some of the Hard Disk functionality has changed in the latest version?
  There are now more options available when configuring test settings plus a new read verify test. Some of the older hard disk options have been removed where they are no longer applicable to modern drives. The transfer test has been removed, with the introduction of faster UDMA transfers, chipset specific bus mastering drivers are now required to attain the maximum transfer rate of your Hard disk. In order accurately test the performance of your Hard disk transfer rate a windows based environment is required. Modern drives do not respond to low level format, they are preformatted once during manufacture; subsequent management of bad sectors is performed automatically by the drive.

• What does a global status failure in hard drive testing mean?
  This means that any one of the hard drive tests for the currently selected drive has returned as a 'Fail'.

• Pc-Check has got the size of my hard disk wrong.
  Prior to version 4.60, if you had a SCSI hard disk drive that was of a size greater than about 8GB, Pc-Check would not be unable to detect additional space beyond this size. Versions 4.60 and above of Pc-Check feature greatly enhanced SCSI support. The current limit for both IDE (ATA) and SCSI hard disks is approx 2TB.

• I have run Pc-Check on my computer and it has identified bad clusters on the hard drive. How can I mark these bad sectors?
  Modern IDE hard drives ship with bad sectors premarked at the factory and these cannot be edited, drives can also automatically remap bad sectors to reserve sectors on-the-fly. The appearance of unmarked bad sectors is a not a good sign as it implies that all reserved sectors available to the drive have been exhausted and that further remapping is not possible due to the volume of errors. Our advice is that once detectable errors occur, the drive should be replaced since the errors could be an indication of future escalating or catastrophic failure(s).

• What hard disk partition types can Pc-Check test?
  Pc-Check is not concerned with the logical format of the hard disk; it is concerned only with the hard disk as a physical hardware device. This means that the testing process is entirely independent of the OS and file system installed. Often in the manufacturing field, the hard disk may yet to be loaded. If Pc-Check tests show that a hard disk has passed it's physical tests, errors reported from by the OS will be due to logical corruption of the file system structures or file data caused by software bugs, system crashes or power loss.

• What should I do if the Pc-Check hard disk tests report unmarked bad sectors on my IDE drive?
  Ideally you should replace the drive. IDE drives are configured in the factory to 'hide' bad sectors. For some drives there is a limited capacity to remap additional bad sectors, however this is handled by the drive automatically without your knowledge. If unmarked bad sectors are identified by Pc-Check, any capacity to remap sectors has been exhausted and these occurrences are likely to be symptomatic of a worsening problem.

• How can I speed up Hard Disk testing?
  Hard disk sizes have advanced rapidly over the last few years. Transfer rates have improved but not in any direct relation to the size. So there now exists a significant time overhead to thoroughly test each and every individual sector of a hard disk. Hard disk testing can be made to execute faster only if you are willing to accept less exhaustive testing. That said, the MTBF of hard disks has also improved significantly in recent times and so it is not as significant statistically to reduce surface coverage. To reduce testing times, use the following command line switches followed by a time or percentage. /HDD or /HDL for Hard Disk Device Duration or level. /HMD or /HML for Hard Disk Media Duration or level. It is also possible to modify these settings in the Hard Disk Advanced tests under test settings.

USB

• Are the USB tests and Preferred Port Plug in Pc-Check compliant with both USB 1 and USB 2?
  Yes, both the USB Preferred Port Plug and all of the existing tests in Pc-Check will work with both USB Specification 1 and USB Specification 2.

Memory

• Does PC-Check support DDR Ram?
  Yes, Pc-Check supports the latest DDR and RIMM technologies.

BIOS

• I have an Intel 865 Chipset based motherboard, with the P13 BIOS. If I use the USB Licensed version of Pc-Check, all tests hang when I attempt to go to the applicable testing screen.
  This is an acknowledged problem with Intel's BIOS. In your computer's BIOS settings, disable USB Legacy support, then save and reboot your PC. You may wish to reset this setting after running PC-Check.

• I have an Intel 865 Chipset based motherboard, with the P13 BIOS. Running the USB Functional or Controller tests on my computer causes Pc-Check to hang.
  This is an acknowledged problem with Intel's BIOS. In your computer's BIOS settings, disable USB Legacy support, then save and reboot your PC. You may wish to reset this setting after running PC-Check.