About HardwareProbe

HardwareProbe is a small collection of hardware tests that run in your browser, built because the existing ones were slow, cluttered, or asked you to install something.

Why this site exists

When a microphone stops working before a meeting, or a key stops responding halfway through a document, the first question is always the same: is the hardware broken, or is one application misconfigured? Answering that should take fifteen seconds and no downloads.

Every page here isolates one piece of hardware, shows plainly what the browser can see, and explains what to change when the result is not what you expected. The troubleshooting notes matter as much as the test itself — a green light is not much help on its own.

How the tests work

All of them are built on standard web APIs that your browser already ships with: getUserMedia for the microphone and camera, keyboard events for the key tester, the Fullscreen API for the pixel test and the Gamepad API for controllers.

Because these run in the page itself, nothing needs to be uploaded and no server sees your data. That is a design decision rather than a marketing line: there is no upload endpoint in this site to send anything to.

What is here

• Microphone Test — Check that your mic picks up sound, watch a live level meter and play a recording back.
• Webcam Test — Verify your camera works, check resolution and frame rate, and take a test snapshot.
• Keyboard Test — Press every key and see which ones register. Finds dead, stuck and ghosting keys.
• Mouse Test — Check every button and the scroll wheel, and catch a switch that double-clicks on its own.
• Dead Pixel Test — Full-screen solid colours that make dead, stuck and dust-covered pixels obvious.
• Refresh Rate Test — Measure how many frames per second your screen really delivers, and how steady they are.
• Touchscreen Test — Draw across the screen to find dead zones, and see how many fingers it tracks at once.
• Headphone Test — Check left and right channels, stereo balance and which frequencies you can still hear.
• Click Speed Test — Measure your clicks per second over 1 to 100 seconds and keep track of your best score.
• Gamepad Test — Check every button, trigger and stick on your controller, plus stick drift and rumble.

Accuracy

Browser tests have real limits, and the pages say so where it matters. The keyboard test cannot see the Fn key. Reported webcam resolution is what the browser negotiated, not the sensor maximum. A stuck pixel fixer works sometimes and not always. Overstating what a test proves would make it useless, so we do not.

If you find something wrong, or a test behaves oddly on hardware we have not tried, please say so — corrections are welcome and get applied.

Who runs it

HardwareProbe is built and maintained by an independent developer, alongside other projects. It is not affiliated with any hardware manufacturer, operating system or browser vendor. You can get in touch through the contact page.