what extent are hardware faults acceptable?

is there an amount of time its good to run prime95 for w/o errors to consider a processor stable, or should it hypothetically never encounter a fault?

i am running an xp2500 at 200x11 w/ 1.7 vcore...its never bsod'ed or nething but runs longer in prime95 with the higher 1.7 vcore...

ive heard systems can become more stable over time... will i eventually be able to drop the vcore?

any input is appreciated.

thanx

24hrs with 2 instances of prime95 is what i do...

2 instances of prime95?...is that for one processor?..how do u clone the prog?

well, for duals...

same except one for one proc

If you get errors only after several hours, this is a result of slight instability because the system is running with little or no margin. It's stable enough to boot and moderate stress, but as soon as the system is under enough load to go over that critical point, it will freeze. To be 100% stable, Prime95 should run 12-24 hours without any errors.

The whole point of testing is to see if you get errors or not thus testing the stability. The meaning of errors themselves is not the issue.

Note that many of us have gotten errors only after 8 hours of Prime95 Torture Test.

Need to pass that 12 hour mark with no Prime95 errors to consider your system somewhat stable. You can use your computer to do whatever you want during those 12 hours.

lol, my 2500+ doesn't run Prime stable for over about 6 minutes before it freezes. My temp doesn't go over 41C either. The really funny thing is that it isn't even overclocked!!! It never freezes when doing anything else though. I wish I would have stuck it in before the 30 days was up so that I could have sent it back, but oh well.

Temp is one thing, stability another.

Post your full specs, Johnson County.

also my temps are 46°C load, is this too hot for an athlon?

[i know its not typically, but thats in an a/c environment] i will be moving it to a no a/c environment at the end of this month: college park

46 is not hot for an athlon.... like 66 is pretty hot... even 50's isn't too bad...

46C isn't bad at all if it's not overclocked and is still pretty good if it is overclocked. I try not to go over 50C when overclocked as a rule of thumb, but you can very safely go higher than that if you're not overclocking.