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Dell Diagnostics: Dell Latitude L400 User's Guide
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Dell™ Diagnostics: Dell Latitude™ L400 User's Guide
Unlike many diagnostic programs, the Dell Diagnostics helps you
check your computer's hardware without any additional equipment and without destroying any
data. By using the diagnostics, you can have confidence in your computer's operation. And
if you find a problem you cannot solve by yourself, the diagnostic tests can provide you
with important information you will need when talking to Dell's service and support
personnel.
NOTICE: Use the Dell Diagnostics to test only your Dell
computer. Using this program with other computers may cause incorrect computer responses
or result in error messages.
The Dell Diagnostics provides a series of menus and options from
which you choose particular test groups or subtests. You can also control the sequence in
which the tests are run. The diagnostic test groups or subtests also have these helpful
features:
- Options that let you run tests individually or collectively
- An option that allows you to choose the number of times a test group or subtest is
repeated
- The ability to display or print out test results, or to save them in a file
- Options to temporarily suspend testing if an error is detected, or to terminate testing
when an adjustable error limit is reached
- A Devices menu that briefly describes each test and its parameters
- A Config menu that describes the configuration of the devices in the
selected device group
- Status messages that inform you whether test groups or subtests were completed
successfully
- Error messages that appear if any problems are detected
Whenever a major component or device in your computer does not
function properly, you may have a component failure. As long as the microprocessor and the
input and output components of your computer (the display, keyboard, and diskette drive)
are working, you can use the Dell Diagnostics. If you are experienced with computers and
know what component(s) you need to test, simply select the appropriate diagnostic test
group(s) or subtest(s). If you are unsure about how to begin diagnosing a problem, read
the rest of this section.
Perform the following steps to start the diagnostics.
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NOTE: Before booting from the Dell
Latitude L400 ResourceCD,
you may want to print this section so that you can refer to it while running the
diagnostics. |
- Turn off the computer.
- Undock the computer if you have it docked.
- Turn on the computer and press <F2> as soon as you see the Dell
logo screen. If you wait too long and the operating system begins to load into memory, let
the computer complete the load operation. Then shut down the system and try again.
- In the system setup program,
go to the Boot screen and set the following boot sequence:
- Removable Devices
- ATAPI CD-ROM Drive
- Hard Disk
- Boot to LAN
- Save the changes and exit the system setup program.
- Insert your ResourceCD into the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.
- Turn the computer off.
- Turn the computer on. The computer restarts and automatically begins
to run the Dell Diagnostics.
- When you have completed running diagnostics, remove
your ResourceCD from
the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.
To return to the boot sequence you use for normal operation, repeat
steps 1 through 5, customizing the boot sequence to fit your needs. Then restart your
computer.
When you start the diagnostics, the Dell logo screen appears,
followed by a message telling you that the diagnostics is loading.
After the diagnostics loads, the Diagnostics
Menu appears (see Figure 1). The menu allows you
to run all or specific diagnostic tests or to exit to the MS-DOS� prompt.
For a quick check of your computer, select Quickly Test All
Devices. This option runs only the subtests that do not require user interaction
and that do not take a long time to run. Dell recommends that you choose this option first
to increase the odds of tracing the source of the problem quickly. For a thorough check of
your computer, select Fully Test All Devices. To check a particular area
of your computer, select Select Devices to Test.
To select an option from this menu, highlight the option and press
<Enter>, or press the key that corresponds to the highlighted letter in the option
you choose.
Figure 1. Diagnostics Menu
When you select Select Devices to Test from
the Diagnostics Menu, the main screen of the diagnostics
appears (see Figure 2).
The main screen lists the diagnostic test device groups, lists the
devices of the selected device group, and allows you to select categories from a menu.
From this screen, you can enter two other types of screens.
Information on the main screen of the diagnostics is presented in
the following five areas:
- Two lines at the top of the screen identify the
version number of the Dell Diagnostics.
- On the left side of the screen, the Device Groups
area lists the diagnostic test groups in the order they will run if you select All
from the Run tests menu. Press the up- or down-arrow key
to highlight a test device group.
- On the right side of the screen, the Devices for Highlighted
Group area lists the computer's currently detected hardware and some of the
relevant settings.
- The lower-right side of the screen displays information about your drive(s).
- Two lines at the bottom of the screen make up the menu area. The
first line lists the categories you can select; press the left- or right-arrow key to
highlight a menu category. The second line gives information about the category currently
highlighted.
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NOTE: The options displayed on your screen should
reflect the hardware configuration of your computer. |
Figure 2. Dell Diagnostics Main
Screen
When you boot your computer from the Dell Latitude
L400 ResourceCD, the diagnostics
checks your system configuration information and displays it in the Device Groups
area on the main screen.
The following sources supply this configuration information for the
diagnostics:
- The system configuration information settings (stored in nonvolatile
random-access memory [NVRAM]) that you selected while using the system setup program
- Identification tests of the microprocessor, the video controller, the
keyboard controller, and other key components
- Basic input/output system (BIOS) configuration information
temporarily saved in RAM
Do not be concerned if the Device Groups area does
not list the names of all the components or devices you know are part of your computer.
For example, you may not see a printer listed, although you know one is attached to your
computer. Because your printer is a parallel communications device, the computer
recognizes the printer by its LPT1 address and identifies it as a parallel port. You can
test your printer connection in the Parallel Ports tests.
Six comprehensive, menu-driven, online Help categories provide
instructions on how to use the program and explain each menu item, test group, subtest,
and test and error result. To enter the Help menu, perform the following steps:
- Highlight Select Devices to Test in the Diagnostics
Menu.
- Press <Enter>.
- Press <h>.
The Help menu categories are Menu,
Keys, Device
Group, Device, Test,
and Versions. The online Help also provides
detailed descriptions of the devices that you are testing. The Help categories are
explained in the following subsections.
Menu Category
Menu describes the main menu screen area, the Device
Groups, and the different diagnostic menus and commands and instructions
on how to use them.
Keys Category
Keys explains the functions of the all of the
keystrokes that can be used in Dell Diagnostics.
Device Group describes the test group that is
presently highlighted in the Device Groups list on the
main menu screen. It also provides reasoning for using some tests.
Device is the educational section of online
Help. It describes the function and purpose of the highlighted device in the Device
Groups.
For example, the following information appears when you select Device
for Diskette in the Device Groups
list:
Diskette drive A:
The diskette disk drive device reads and writes data to and
from diskettes. Diskettes are flexible recording media, sometimes contained in hard
shells. Diskette recording capacities are small and access times are slow relative to hard
disk drives, but they provide a convenient means of storing and transferring data.
Test Category
Test provides a thorough explanation of the subtest
for each selected device group. For example, the following description is provided for the
Diskette Drive Seek Test:
Diskette drive A: - Diskette Drive Seek Test
This test verifies the drive's ability to position its
read/write heads. The test operates in two passes: first, seeking from the beginning to
ending cylinders inclusively, and second, seeking alternately from the beginning to ending
cylinders with convergence towards the middle.
Versions lists the version numbers of the subtests
that are used by the Dell Diagnostics.
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