Dell Diagnostics: Dell Latitude LS Portable Computers User's Guide

How to Use Dell Diagnostics

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:

1.Highlight Select Devices to Test in the Diagnostics Menu.

2.Press <Enter>.

3.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 Category

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 Category

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 Category

Versions lists the version numbers of the subtests that are used by the Dell Diagnostics.

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Dell PP01S technical specifications How to Use Dell Diagnostics