[GTALUG] computer hardware testing tools.

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Jul 13, 2023 at 05:22:07PM -0400, Karen Lewellen via talk wrote:
> Thanks for getting back to my  question smiles.
> I believe i have been focused on Motherboards more than the ports for your
> exact reason,  the ports are connection dependent.  what about boards
> themselves?

Unfortunately software can only really test that the registers in the
chips are responding as expected.  The port on the board may still be
damaged and not working even if you can talk to the chip that drives
the port.  There is often another chip involved between the controller
and the port to convert voltage levels (a PHY in the case of a network
port or a level converter for a serial port).  If that chip is damaged
(and if a port has a surge that is the chip most likely to take
the damage) then you won't find out other than by trying to use it
unfortunately.

-- 
Len Sorensen