Lots of cards to test, any suggestions?

[MrBond]

Well, I've finally decided to go through the pile-o-cards we have at work and test them out, so we can make a designation between broke and usable. My cow orkers and I are getting tired of replacing a card with another, and then finding out it's another bad card we had laying around for some reason.

We don't have any of the driver disks, which could be a problem. They're mostly modems and sound cards, with a few NICs and video cards thrown in. I thought about putting together a system under WinME to test them in, as hopefully WinME will support most of these older cards. Or is there a better way to work it? Any suggestions would be fantastic. TIA!

 

[fast_eddie]

One basic suggestion: when you find a card that is faulty or questionable MARK IT as [ NG ]for definitely faulty cards or [ ?? ] for cards that may work with the right configuration. you can use a paint-stick pen on the backplate or apply a small paper label somewhere on the card.
as far as testing all the cards; figure out how much of your employers labor dollars you are going to use to test all the boards lying around.
another suggestion: enforce a workshop rule that all faulty cards go immediately into the trash!

I went thru similar piles at my auto repair shop in the early 80's with blower motors & wiper motors that 'only needed new brushes'; my crew was very good at scrounging! The ultimate solution was to dump the entire pile we had accumulated and to start from scratch with a clear and enforceable set of rules (rule #1 - everything had to be labeled!) for handling our 'may be usable stock'.

 

[MrBond]

Yeah, we just recently instituted the "bad card goes in the trash" rule, as one of the guys spent about an hour finding a working sound card. Apparently, the last straw was one particular card, which came flying across the back room in two pieces, with a stream of explicitives following it 🙂