PC health check

Roberto

Roberto

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I have a netbook which has spent over two years on our boat in fair use and is still going strong, showing no signs of getting old. A lot of tropical humidity, but no direct drops of water, no wet fingers, etc. Samsung NC10 with Windows XP.

Before bringing it again for six months, is there a way to check its health conditions ? I would just like being able to ascertain "it may die in the next couple of months" rather than "next couple of years"

Are there any technical tests I can do, knowing that I have a very basic understanding of computers


thanks
 
I don't think that there is a way to tell when something is going to break, you can clean it up with programs like CCleaner etc.
 
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I'll pick this up as it sounds like an electronics 'servicing' question; generally, there's no way of knowing.

If it is working now and has been for two years it has been well and truly "soak-tested" (probably literally) so you're through the first period of higher failure rate where problems are often due to manufacturing or discrete component defect.

As for predicting failure, although some specialist devices have sophisticated self-monitoring and reporting routines, I'm afraid that's not normally possible with 'domestic' equipment. Even if you were warned of a fault (" IC101 will fail in sixteen hours") what could you do? Almost certainly IC101 wouldn't be worth replacing as it'll be buried somewhere inaccessible and you'd need a surface-mount device rework system to replace it.

The most effective method is to purchase another similar unit, copy your progs and data to it and have it ready to swap in if your first unit fails. You're a few points ahead with WinXP I think, though I'll be corrected soonish if not!

Having said all that, you could watch/listen for screen anomalies and hard disc noisiness- although again, what would you do about it? I'd recommend you invest in a backup unit.
 
Roberto,

Unfortunately almost any part of a PC can fail at any time irrespective of how well you look after it.

Since you data is all on the hard drive you should alwas have a backup of the data preferably on a USB or flash drive and update frequently just incase the HDD fails.

If a PC seems to be slowing down over time it is almost certainly a software problem which is best cured by wiping the HDD and reinstalling the operating system and applications. The handbook will advise how to do this. Then reistate your data from your backup. The PC should then run as fast as it did when new.

If you use the PC to access the web make sure you have up to date viras protection. A good free one is AVG available from download.
 
This may be useful.

Look at the error logs that the computer keeps. Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer (?) . Look at the logs for the System and look for entries with a red mark against them. You will not be error free, I can promise you that, but if it is just the occasional bad entry then fine but if there are a lot of entries for the hard drive then there may be a problem that is building up and the drive could fail.

(I no longer have XP so can't give a definitive answer)
 
nimbusgb said:
Don't know about yours but my NC10 came with the hard drive partitioned into a C and identically sized D drive. D being retained solely for a complete mirror of the C drive. Handy but not totally necessary.
Click to expand...

Nice, until your hard drive fails and renders both partitions useless.
 
Are you regularly running software diagnostics? We use aVast anitvirus and iObit Advanced System Care. There are tons of those kind of programs out there. Some here may have preferences and computer gurus should have favorites. iObit checks the registry and lots of other things. You should also defrag periodically.

Only two things on a computer: hardware and software. Not too much you can do about the hardware, but you CAN protect your software.

And, like in boats: backup, backup, backup.
 
Roberto said:
I have a netbook which has spent over two years on our boat in fair use and is still going strong, showing no signs of getting old. A lot of tropical humidity, but no direct drops of water, no wet fingers, etc. Samsung NC10 with Windows XP.

Before bringing it again for six months, is there a way to check its health conditions ? I would just like being able to ascertain "it may die in the next couple of months" rather than "next couple of years"

Are there any technical tests I can do, knowing that I have a very basic understanding of computers


thanks
Click to expand...
I have found that the hard drive is the main prob, 3 years and they are getting in to iffy territory. The newer SATA drives seem less robust than the older IDE ones (yours will be a Sata)
All you can do is back up your important files regularly (bear in mind that an external hard drive, left running continuously suffers the same as an internal one as above!)
If you want to fanny around, save all your importsnt files and use the built in restore system to restore it to factory settings. It will be a lot faster BUT you will have to relaod all your fav progs,, then the data, then download all the updates. OR you could uninstall all the unwanted dross and then download CCleaner and clean your pooter up.
Stu
 
thank you all


I do have a back up portable hard disk I periodically update, likewise for disk cleaning, unfragmenting etc. The "Event check" - System tab from the control panel shows very few errors, fwiw.

I understand from the replies there is no way of knowing the conditions of the hardware nor when it will fail, so I guess I have to prepare a full new backup PC.


The excess weight luggage for the flight back to the boat is getting enormous :(
 
concentrik said:
As for predicting failure, although some specialist devices have sophisticated self-monitoring and reporting routines, I'm afraid that's not normally possible with 'domestic' equipment. Even if you were warned of a fault (" IC101 will fail in sixteen hours") what could you do? Almost certainly IC101 wouldn't be worth replacing as it'll be buried somewhere inaccessible and you'd need a surface-mount device rework system to replace it.
Click to expand...

Actually most of the hardware has failure detection incorporated these days, you just need the right software to read the info.
Hard drives have SMART monitoring which will predict with good reliability when a failure will occur - this will lead to you replacing a "working" drive before failure though so is only useful if you're willing to believe the software, otherwise you'll ignore it and then see the drive fail anyway.
Batteries also have monitoring and will tell you when they are going to fail. This was built in to Windows 7 at launch and a quick Google will show you the turmoil that caused when millions of people found their battery was about to die!
Cheers
Dave
 
Belarc Advisor a free programme will profile your system in terms of software and hardware-totally above board.
As for hardware most laptops and PCs have their own on board checking systems run by the bios chip.
The bios chip is the one bit of the PC that is permanently active and kept awake by its own little battery.
It tells the rest of the PC to wake up and connect the right bits to each other-start up and scan the harddrive for the operating system,upload it to the RAM memory etc etc.
Early Thinkpads have the hardware checking system stored on board within the bios chip and will check memory;chip;processor;hard drive;motherboard etc.
An early 2000 Thinkpad I have uses a system called PC Doctor. Uses the floppy drive and again it can check everythink.
Starting point is to download manual for your laptop and check for necessary programmes.
Levono(thinkpad) holds everything for all its laptops ever built.Dell have a similar setup.
Do not be scared by laptops-all their component parts just plug in other than the deeper you go the more bits you have to unscrew/unplug.
Harddrives;memory;keyboard you can swop in under 30 mins.
 
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