Kingwin4-Digit PC Analyzer [CMBA-4] - PCI & ISA Motherboard Tester, POST Card, 4-Digit Display, Supports ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX Motherboards

If you know what you're doing then this is worth the purchase. The LEDs can let you quickly verify some things such as getting the right voltages to the PCI/ISA slots.The card is somewhat easier to use with ISA slots because the LED display faces up when plugged into the ISA slot. You can use the extender when plugging into the PCI slots, but you won't see the individual LEDs, however you can always use a mirror I guess.The card will run through all the codes given by the bios. The manual has some codes, but more can be found online. After the card stops receiving codes you may have to scroll up through the codes to find the actual error code. You do this by holding down the button until it says 'UP' on the left side of the LED display.You then hit the button to view each code that was read to find the error, it will generally be a few codes up from where it stopped, this all of course depends on your bios.Now the unfortunate thing is I used this on a Compaq, and I got an error code of E8. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but that is not on this card maker, but Compaq. If you use a standard AMI, Phoenix etc...bios however you shouldn't run into this issue.

Price was reasonable

works but what good is it really?

I'm really shocked they still make these. I was in no place to use one in the 90s, but I remember them being a fairly big thing years ago. The manual didn't explicitly say it otherwise, but it made reference to machines being under or over 300Mhz and gave a list of backdoor BIOS passwords that I know I saw being passed around on the Web as old lists fifteen or more years ago. Like, probably 286/386 era stuff!I used the ISA header on a late 486 system with PCI from 1995, and it did indeed give post codes which corresponded to the Phoenix BIOS codes in the manual.

So I’m rebuilding my graphics PC after 7-years of use, and I’m using a brand of motherboard that I haven’t used before for reasons I won’t bore you with. Anyway, trying to count ‘beep codes’ is a royal pain and online searching suggested getting a ‘POST (Power On Self Test) diagnostics card’ as it will read and display the various codes during boot up. OK, apparently these things are still being made; but aren’t as common as they used to be. So I find one on Amazon with a decent rating for $10. Yeah…yeah, I know $10 isn’t that much for a diagnostics tool; but I found some for half that amount out there with worse ratings.OK, so I order the thing, and it plugs in and doesn’t blow itself or anything else up; but it doesn’t do anything either other than light up the LED’s on the thing. Big deal I’ve got LED’s laying around that I can connect a battery to if I want pretty happy lights. I thought you might like to see the quality construction of this piece of rubbish.1. The first picture is the instruction manual; yes, it did come with a manual written in English that was halfway understandable; but it didn’t explain what the jumper cable is used for and where on the PC it plugs into.2. The second picture shows the QA/QC stamp that they couldn’t even be bothered with putting a checkmark over the month of alleged manufacture. Notice a couple of the black components are scuffed like they were scraped up on the factory floor.3. The rest of the photos show the ‘quality’ construction from Kingwin's supplier. Yes, that is hot glue holding the components on the remote display instead of solder. I just love how carefully some of the doo-dads were properly seated on the boards.So now a bit of commentary as I can’t resist. The environmentalists tell us the earth is in danger due to pollution, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum; but I have yet to hear one peep out of them over all the Chinese products that ends up in landfills, roadsides, waterways, etc due to poor quality; the amount of resources used to make and transport this junk all over the world; the amount of resources and time used to process this stuff once it reaches the landfill; the amount of energy used to return this junk to the merchant or send it to the landfill, etc, etc, ad infinitum.