5punk

Know any good stress testers out there? And while we're about it, there any decent hardware/software analysis and problem spotting stuff? By machine is behaving oddly and I need to ascertain where the problem lies - done drivers, DX and virus's already but need to check heat/power/failing hardware/malware and borked windoze reg.


As an aside, I don't want the normal vapid 'There's a problem with your incomprehensible, update the driver or talk to your programme vendor' or 'There appears to be a problem. Blow your system admin'. I know there's a fucking problem, I wouldn't be running this fucking programme if there wasn't a fucking problem, and btw I am the fucking sys admin, you ever tried blowing yourself? You have to remove a fucking rib your useless piece of shit. AND NO IT'S NOT FUCKING OK.

Sounds like you need a stress test yourself.

I also hate it when something like Exchange tells you to contact your administrator - if you weren't an administrator you wouldn't be fucking about with it in the first place!

Percussive Maintenance FTW!

[edit] Bah, *insert hammer picture here*

Otherwise:

(I assume this is running on XP) See if you can get hold of an ISO of Norton Utilities 2000 CD, boot from that and run its repairy thing, has worked wonders for me in the past.

Otherwise http://www.memtest86.com/ for memory, not sure about other components though (although I will keep an eye on this thread for useful stuff I could make use of in future)

for CPU (and memory to a point) i like Orthos or Prime95

for memory, memtest

Graphics, I like atitool as it has a good artifact spotting mode (and works on nvidia cards)

Sandra can be good for less-specific stress tests.

malware/virus wise, i like sophos (they do a 30 day trial) and spybot/windows defender.

unfortunately, there's not too much you can do with the reg apart from a registry cleaner app, but you do risk going a bit WEY with those and fucking your systemup.

I found System Mechanic very good for clearing up the registry without fucking it up.

I would wholeheartidly go along with Berks call on Sophos without a tiny hint of bias there

fabyak wrote:I would wholeheartidly go along with Berks call on Sophos without a tiny hint of bias there

*demands free copies*

*wanders off to grab a stack*

Dog Pants wrote:Sounds like you need a stress test yourself.

It was a joke...thank you for spotting it I'll give these thingamies a try later. I'm using AVG Free-for-a-little-bit-longer for viruseseseses...seems to be pretty good. Does Sophos do other funky shit I should know about?

friznit wrote:
It was a joke...thank you for spotting it I'll give these thingamies a try later. I'm using AVG Free-for-a-little-bit-longer for viruseseseses...seems to be pretty good. Does Sophos do other funky shit I should know about?

yes, sophos works.

Application Control, Anti-virus, anti-spyware, Potentially Unwanted appliacation finder, Rootkit finder, very soon to be Network access control...

friznit wrote:
It was a joke...thank you for spotting it I'll give these thingamies a try later. I'm using AVG Free-for-a-little-bit-longer for viruseseseses...seems to be pretty good. Does Sophos do other funky shit I should know about?

Sophos has (or at least previously had) a deal with the Army as an official supplier. It might be worth checking up the geek chain of command to see if you can wangle a copy for yourself (I am assuming this is on your own machine, rather than work).

Sheriff Fatman wrote:
Sophos has (or at least previously had) a deal with the Army as an official supplier. It might be worth checking up the geek chain of command to see if you can wangle a copy for yourself (I am assuming this is on your own machine, rather than work).

Get me one too if you can

We use Sophos here at the Council I work in. If there are free copies floating around I'd like to claim one!

Graduated 8 months ago and counting, and still every bit the student.

Hmm, I am the geek chain of command. I'll look into it.