HP COMPAQ D230, COMPAQ D220, COMPAQ DC5000, D325 MICROTOWER, COMPAQ D248 Manual

Testing on HP Business Desktop PCs

Introduction.........................................................................................................................................	2
Importance of Desktop Testing...............................................................................................................	2
Test Tool Development..........................................................................................................................	3
Hardware Evaluation Test Development ..............................................................................................	3
Software Image Development ............................................................................................................	3
Types of Testing...................................................................................................................................	4
System Board Validation Testing ........................................................................................................	4
Platform Validation Testing ................................................................................................................	4
Mechanical Validation Testing...........................................................................................................	5
Module Functional Testing.................................................................................................................	5
System Integration Testing .................................................................................................................	6
Performance Testing .........................................................................................................................	7
Desktop Certifications .......................................................................................................................	7
Tested Configurations...........................................................................................................................	8
Hours of Testing...................................................................................................................................	8
Observations during Testing..................................................................................................................	9
On-going Qualifications .......................................................................................................................	9
For More Information .........................................................................................................................	10

Introduction

Testing is an important part of the value supplied by HP to our customers. Many companies can assemble personal computers. HP has the engineering expertise and resources to perform the tens of thousands of hours testing every desktop platform we develop. This testing provides our customers with peace of mind, knowing that hundreds of different tests have been performed to provide a stable and reliable experience.

In our quest to continuously improve the customer experience, HP uses a disciplined and methodical development and test process. We verify that each new desktop platform meets or exceeds HP quality standards for structural integrity, reliability, and compatibility. This white paper describes the various forms of testing performed by HP engineering when developing a new HP Business Desktop PC platform.

Importance of Desktop Testing

Business Desktop PCs represent a large portion of the worldwide computer shipments and are often the workhorses of business. As such, it is critical that they be durable and able to support a vast array of operating systems, languages, applications, and add-in options. Helping to ensure this compatibility and flexibility requires extensive, well-engineered testing.

In this industry, quality is a differentiator. Business customers recognize the value of a more reliable PC, and that is a major factor in their purchase selection. The time and resources we invest in our testing yield benefits to them and to HP. A well-tested product can lead to a more efficient factory, lower costs, fewer failures in the field, and more satisfied customers.

The PC business is a dynamic industry in which new technologies are created and adopted. It is imperative that we have a robust test process that can react to new technologies, verify their quality, integrate them into our product lines, and get them to market quickly.

The following sections provide more details of the HP test tool development and capability and the types of testing performed. These sections also provide a closer look at the investment of time in our test process and how we track the results of tests conducted on HP Business Desktop PCs.

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Test Tool Development

An essential element of the HP test process is our attention and dedication to continuously improving the tests and processes used during product development. Two such areas of concentration are Hardware Evaluation Test Development and Software Image Development. Hardware Evaluation Test Development designs tests to help ensure that hardware components conform to published functional engineering design specifications. Software Image Development architects image databases, processes, and tools used to test and deliver software images on business desktop products.

Hardware Evaluation Test Development

The Evaluation Test Development (ETD) team designs and provides hardware and software test tools necessary to help ensure that the hardware components of HP products conform to published functional engineering design specifications. This engineering organization, established in 1988, is shared by most of HP. The ETD tools are used throughout all R&D organizations within the Personal Systems Group (PSG) and most R&D organizations within the Enterprise Systems Group (ESG), in manufacturing sites, and by HP field engineers. The ETD tests enable product development teams to better evaluate new designs and resolve most design issues, and they help improve manufacturing volume production.

•Hardware and Software design evaluation tools—ETD tests emulate most states of a targeted subsystem, they are low cost and easy to setup, and they enable product teams to test a large number of units, which helps to identify yield failures. These tools provide detailed error messages that aid in debugging, and they provide reproducible test cases.

•ETD HW and SW tests are executed on all business desktop products and are used on the following product sub-systems:

–Microprocessors and chipsets, including cache memory, interrupts, and timers

–System memory

–PCI/PCI-X/AGP/PCI Express Graphics subsystems

–Hard Drive and Removable Storage interfaces

–Network Interface Cards and modems

–Parallel, Serial, and USB 1.0/2.0 ports, Bluetooth, and Firewire

–Power Management

–Cardbus/PCMCIA

Software Image Development

Software Image Development is optimized for time-to-market delivery, quality, and release integrity. A dedicated tool development team was formed in 1998. Their charter was to design software image databases, processes, and tools that encompass the following elements:

•Test Management—Database tools enable test teams to generate and manage test plans and test procedures in a centralized, repeatable environment with assurances that the test configurations conform to product definition and requirements.

–Comprehensive test procedures within test plans contain pass/fail criteria that can be leveraged by any workgroup. Rigorous database rules help verify that each test procedure criteria is executed only when certain conditions are met.

–Test configurations are tracked at the hardware revision level of each device, including firmware (FW)/BIOS revisions, and at the software versions level for each component used during software image download and test.

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