5Using system diagnosticsIf you experience a problem with your system, run the system diagnostics before contacting Dell fortechnical assistance. The purpose of running system diagnostics is to test your system hardware withoutrequiring additional equipment or risking data loss. If you are unable to fix the problem yourself, serviceand support personnel can use the diagnostics results to help you solve the problem.Dell online diagnosticsDell Online Diagnostics, a stand-alone suite of diagnostic programs or test modules, allows you to rundiagnostic tests on the systems in a production environment, and helps you ensure maximum uptime ofyour systems. Online Diagnostics allows you to run diagnostic tests on chassis and storage componentssuch as hard drives, physical memory, and network interface cards (NICs). You can use the graphical userinterface (GUI) or the command line interface (CLI) to run diagnostic tests on the hardware that OnlineDiagnostics discovers on your system. For information about using diagnostics, see the Dell OnlineDiagnostics User’s Guide under Software → Serviceability Tools, at dell.com/support/manuals.Dell embedded system diagnosticsNOTE: The Dell Embedded System Diagnostics is also known as Enhanced Pre-boot SystemAssessment (ePSA) diagnostics.The embedded system diagnostics provides a set of options for particular device groups or devicesallowing you to:• Run tests automatically or in an interactive mode• Repeat tests• Display or save test results• Run thorough tests to introduce additional test options to provide extra information about the faileddevice(s)• View status messages that inform you if tests are completed successfully• View error messages that inform you of problems encountered during testingWhen to use the embedded system diagnosticsIf a major component or device in the system does not operate properly, running the embedded systemdiagnostics may indicate component failure.74