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Ask HN: Why no diagnostic tools for MACs?

2 points by spikefromspace ↗ HN
There are a lot of hardware diagnostic tools and suites available for PCs: memtest86, PC-Doctor, UltraX, Burn-in test tools and a few unix utilities. Even saw a new tool for Android devices.

But, I haven't seen any for Apple products besides the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring tool that is pre-packaged with the OS. Anybody have any thoughts on why and whether there is an opportunity there? Is it just because most people believe MACs to be unbreakable? Most diagnostic tools are very relatively simple to build and there is no reason to believe that it wouldn't be possible for Mac OS X.

6 comments

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thaumaturgy
We do a lot of computer troubleshooting and diagnostics for clients. Macs (not MACs BTW) probably account for around 1% of our workload. I think there are a few reasons for this: they are a slightly smaller market to begin with; users get sucked in to Apple's product life cycle, so systems tend to get replaced before they're old enough to have common failures; Apple (maybe) has better manufacturing controls, so there is a lower percentage of early failures; and, probably most importantly, Apple has its own stores everywhere, with a strong brand, so Apple owners will tend to just take a misbehaving system in to the nearest Apple store.

In our case, we have separate hardware for testing drives and memory. That pretty much leaves the logic board and/or video board, which are integrated on a lot of Macs, and experience gives us enough hints on the rest.

So, I don't mean to discourage anybody that wants to build a really cool tool for MacOS diagnostics -- I'd love to see some of the old-school hacker mentality come back to the Apple market (e.g. MacsBug) -- but there probably isn't a lot of demand for it.

spikefromspace
Yes, that is what it seems like. Anybody who is familiar enough can find ways of testing with other x86 based tools, and everybody else just takes it to a Apple repair shop or replaces it.

I was unable to find a mainstream native app in the Mac App Store, so nobody seems to have attempted it either.

zmonkeyz
Dtrace.
spikefromspace
Seems more like a software/OS diagnostic tool but I had never heard of it before, so thanks. Will read up on it.
runjake
It might help to be more specific. Memtest86 has run on every Intel Mac I've had. Ive got no clue what PC Doctor or UltraX are, but I see no lack of diagnostic tools for the Mac.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to ask "What are some diagnostic tools for the Mac?" as you clearly haven't done much research yet.

spikefromspace
I guess I was a little unclear in my post. What I meant is that a lot of the diagnostic functionality available for PCs(memtest86 and Linux utils) can easily run on Intel Macs as well but given how relatively easy it would be, I don't see a native app that specifically advertises itself as a Mac hardware diagnostic tool unless I am missing something obvious.

So, it seems like there must be no demand for a native app, but I am just surprised that nobody has attempted it. I haven't spent a huge amount of looking but then again I was trying to find a mainstream app not something obscure.