A method of testing a surgical system that takes advantage of the fact that in a balanced irrigation/aspiration system (inflow.gtoreq.outflow) the duration of the aspiration pressure recovery to the irrigation fluid source pressure immediately following pump stop is independent of pump run time. This method provides a more reliable way of detecting restricted irrigation flow configurations not detectable by the current methods, such as marginal irrigation flow cases that could potentially lead to surgical complications (e.g. chamber collapse during post-occlusion break surge).