s/w diagnosis tools for hardware - any good?

[Gary Roach]

I'm thinking of buying a software diagnosis tool for diagnosing hardware
problems. The two i've heard of are amidiag from AMI and trend micro
microscope. any thoughts on these and others? are they worth the money?

 

[Gerard Bok]

I'm thinking of buying a software diagnosis tool for diagnosing hardware
problems. The two i've heard of are amidiag from AMI and trend micro
microscope. any thoughts on these and others? are they worth the money?

Generally: not.
What good is it to know that your DMA controller is bad ?
Or that your PCI bridge is broken ?

Practically, the CPU and RAM are the only replacable compontents
on a current motherboard.

Unless you have both the need, the facilities and the appetite to
replace 200+ pin devices, you don't need to know which one of
them is broken.

(My 2 cents, which would certainly not buy me a microscope bundle