Hardware may be failing - how to check it out

[Robert Moskowitz]

There have been a few things going weird on this Lenovo x120e and I 
thought it may have been f17.  But now with f20 kind of installed, and 
with the problems i had getting anything installed, I think I may really 
have flaky hardware.  Here are the problems.

Probably the worst is I can't write reliably to a USB stick or SD card 
in the SD slot.  I can read them and I can r/w to a powered USB HD and 
seemingly to a DVD/RW drive (both CD and DVD disks).  The reason I say 
seemingly, is I had many failed attempts today installing f20 for disks 
I burned on this system.  Are the disks bad or is it read problems 
though the USB ports.  And it does not seem to matter which of the 3 USB 
ports I try.  Oh, I was able to install the i386; lots of failures and 
bug reports on the x86_64 install attempts.

Another annoying problem is audio.  No sound most of the time.  I may 
have sound for a while after boot, but then it stops.  All standard 
indicators is there is sound, but nothing comes out.

VGA adapter can get flaky and red stops.  Plug unplug. Suspend/resume 
and eventually it comes back.  Sometimes the external VGA stops working 
all together.  Then later starts again.

I have not found any system, within my budget other than the x120e that 
suits my requirements.

12", duo core, 4GB memory, and 'eraser head' pointer are the must 
haves.  Oh and under $200!