How do you test electronic components?

Here are some good tutorials http://www.ladyada.net/learn/multimeter/ and http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/202. Now to test the SMD I'd invest in one of these http://www.extech.com/instruments/produc... Here http://poeth.com/smtmfg.htm and here are good tutorial on the SMD http://www.fpga4fun.com/external/SMD/smd... and http://poeth.com/smtmfg.htm Hope this is going to help you out. Big issue with any of the devices will be that a schematic is going to be very useful, but not always available. I do recommend that you start building yourself a file library and keep/get as many schematics as possible. The probable reason for the lack of a guide that you are looking for is the vast amount of different boards. Each manufacturer likes to protect there boards from copying etc.... Hope this makes sense...:-) Good Luck.