Accurate method/tool diagnose faulty network hardware?

whyyesitsdos

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Feb 1, 2015
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Is there anything out there, whether a methodology performed from within the operating system, a utility ran from outside, or a physical tool, which can consistently diagnose bad network hardware problems quickly? I deal with a lot of computers with malware and junk and these people sometimes just do weird things with their computers and I only get about 5 minutes to try to fix the problem. Being able to rule out bad HW when I can't find an obvious solution (or maybe to confirm my thinking) in under 5 minutes would be a huge help for me.

Does anyone have any tips for me?

Also I should note that I mainly work with Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, and various OS X versions.
 
Solution
Bring with you bootable USB or DVD with some Linux distro. Five minutes should be more than enough to boot, configure the network, and open a web page.