The invention provides a machine fault diagnostic system to help ensure effective equipment maintenance. The major technique used for fault diagnostics is a fault diagnostic network (FDN) which is based on a modified ARTMAP neural network architecture. A hypothesis and test procedure based on fuzzy logic and physical bearing models is disclosed to operate with the FDN for detecting faults that cannot be recognized by the FDN and for analyzing complex machine conditions. The procedure described herein is able to provide accurate fault diagnosis for both one and multiple-fault conditions. Furthermore, a transputer-based parallel processing technique is used in which the FDN is implemented on a network of four T800-25 transputers.