Can you elaborate on that a bit? I just resistance tested some 2N3055's using a known good one as a reference, and it seems that resistance testing was useful. Diode testing didn't tell me anything, but maybe I'm missing something.
You will get
some result but it depends on which DMM and range you use. I'm also too lazy to try to guess how the resistance reading will depend on temperature and whether it's a big deal or not and how DMM measurement circuitry affects it, if at all.
Meanwhile diode mode is intended precisely for measuring forward voltage of PN junctions and it will show the forward voltage of the junction for some reasonable current such that any variation isn't going to affect the result by much. You can know that if it's something like 600-800mV then your transistor is probably okay but if it shows 400mV then it is likely busted. Or maybe it's a dual Schottky in 3-pin package or whatever.
Moreover, in diode mode you are guaranteed that the red lead is positive and black is negative. With resistance, some crappy DMMs reportedly use inverse polarity and you may end up thinking the junctions are backwards.
Anyone have a way of seeing if it's an PNP or NPN transistor?
The pinout of most SMD transistors is as follows:
left - base/gate
right - emitter/source
top - collector/drain
NPN conducts from base to emitter or collector, PNP conducts from emitter or collector to base.
I'm pretty sure it's an IC, though. On the good board, check which pin is connected to ground and what are the voltages on the other pins when it operates.
edit
LOL, an EEPROM in SOT23 and TO92
I think I have seen everything now