In this study a neural network based expert system designed to diagnose operating status of a rotating spindle system supported by ball bearings was introduced. In order to facilitate practical failure situations, five exemplary abnormal status was fabricated. Out of several possible data source locations, seven most effective spots were chosen and proven to be the most successful in predicting single and multiple abnormalities. Increased signal strength was measured around where abnormality was embedded. Signal mea-surement locations producing high prediction rate were also classified. Even though multiple abnormalities were hard to be decoupled into their individual causes, proposed diagnostic system was somewhat effective in predicting such cases under certain combination of sensor locations. Among several abnormal operating conditions, highest prediction rate can be expected when signal is spoiled by the failure or damage in outer race. Proposed diagnostic system was again proven to be the most effective system in analyzing and ranking the importance of data sources.