Guidelines for Thorough Stability Testing

This is in the process of being stickied... Sounds like Matt may have already contacted a mod, and I am currently talking with them about a few slight changes we need their help with. I'm going out of town for the weekend, but I will try to get it taken care of before I take off.

When done, it should slightly resemble christoph's AltOS FAQ.

I think my prob was that i had to set the affinity. I set 1st prime to run on cpu 0 and 2nd prime to rum on cpu1. I don't know if anyone else has had this prob

Any chance of some screenshots? Or if needed I can maybe whip some up? Breaks up the text a bit

I have added a few pictures at the bottom of one of the posts, to help clarify some things - I'll continue to add more pictures as I get good ones together

I think some screenshots would be a superb addition to help clarify some things - especially where to go for priority levels, and testing preferences .

It'd also make it a little easier on the eyes...

I'll start getting some relevent screens on my rig now, and just add them in when we turn this into it's indexed form.

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Very good guide. In addition to memtest86, there is a newer version (memtest86+). It is based on the original memtest86 opensource, but has more chipset/ram/cpu information and best of all, there is a CD ISO file for download. Just burn it and reboot, it boots from the CD and starts testing.

Yeah, that's what I use. It's more compatible with certain types of ram, so it doesn't randomly freeze like some revisions.

wow thats great realy comprehensive cleared up a lot of q's i had bout 3dmark thnx.

thanx for the great guide cleared up some issues i had about how long to run prime and memtest for

now when the 550watter gets here we will see how far she will overclock

Very good guide. In addition to memtest86, there is a newer version (memtest86+). It is based on the original memtest86 opensource, but has more chipset/ram/cpu information and best of all, there is a CD ISO file for download. Just burn it and reboot, it boots from the CD and starts testing.

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Cool, thanks a lot for the heads up - I wasn't at all aware of the newer version; I'll change the file link appropriately

I'm really glad to hear that people are finding the guide useful!

Kewl, always wondered what was a good 3d stability test(other than playing 3d games). Thanks for all the work put into this, i really enjoyed reading it.

Absolutely phenominal job with this guide. I know it´s difficult to compare stickies but this is without a doubt one of the best guides to anything I have ever read. It must be considering I read the whole thing and I´m supposed to be practicing for a recital today.

Great Job felinusz!!!!!!

(I wonder if I can apply this guide to stress testing myself before my NYC debut in two weeks )

Yes, this was exactly what I needed as a beginner! Absolutely a great guide, and you are very well articulated in your writing; great use of english; it was very easy to read and understand everything. I have been running my new system only at stock for the past two weeks......all out open on the bench with just temporary air cooling; hesitant to jump in to overclocking because all the bits and pieces of information I've found in so many diifferent threads and guides had me feeling a bit overwhelmed. You made this guide in perfect timing for me; this will be my first system for overclocking (see my sig)

Also, here is a link to pictures of my set-up on the bench (I have them hosted so I may as well share them ):

http://community.webshots.com/scripts/misc.fcgi?action=invitePickup&uri=album/194423342DOUWnE

One question: considering my set-up, will I need to run two instances of Prime 95 concurrently for the AMD's use of Hypertransport? I don't really know how it compares with the hyperthreading you mentioned on Intell processors. I'm also not sure if it always runs or what, I think I read that you might have to enable it or something (hypertransport).

Thanks so much for this very well thought out guide! I feel lucky to have all this knowledge now; I feel much more confident on jumping in and OC'ing my computer. I just need to learn a little more about the actual OC'ing steps before I'll be completely ready. I am also reading Jesse's guide here for tips for my particluar processor and MB set-up:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=329627

It is not neccessary to run two instances of Prime95 with an Athlon 64 processor in order to get a maximum stress on the chip, for our stability testing purposes.

However, two instances of Prime95, or any CPU stress test for that matter, are *always* neccessary for Intel processors with Hyperthreading.

The reason for this is that Intel chips typically won't use HT with only one "thread" running, (I.E. a game like Doom 3) only when there are multiple, heavy-load "threads" running simultaniously (I.E. two instances of Prime95).

Intel users need to be aware of this, because HT stability is often affected by overclocking - an overclock on an Intel chip that appears stable in single "thread" stress testing, will often be unstable when using HT, and multiple "threads".

I should add that it is sometimes claimed that in order to use two instances of Prime95 effectively on a machine with HT, you need to do some tweaking of the stress test run-options, because both instances will try to use all your system's available memory, causing problems. This is not the case; the newest version of Prime95 should run fine in two instances with the default stress-test settings, and priority ten, if your processor and RAM are stable.

Absolutely a great guide, and you are very well articulated in your writing; great use of english; it was very easy to read and understand everything.

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Thanks, it's really great to hear that .

I'm really glad you found the guide useful, and easy to read .

You've got a really nice high-end setup to work with there; you're going to have a lot of fun playing with it, especially once that Vapo is hooked up .

Nobody has the right to brag about their O/C unless it %100 stable!!!


Very nice guide by the way.


-Andy

Great minds think alike eh, this is the exact same testing I perform when stability testing my own overclocks.

And as a funny little aside, I had someone screaming "Prime95 has been running for 12 hours, and you're gonna run for 12 more, it's stable already!!!" at me a couple of days ago, and of course, Prime95 died after 12 hours and 32 minutes.

Hmmm. Interesting. I figured out what my Prime problem was. Before, it would fail even at stock speeds, but I didn't know much about Prime, so the Priority was set to 1 and I has three programs running in the background, updating every 5 secs or so. I just ran prime at 10 Prior. and minus the programs, and it ran without failing for about 5-10 min's, but then I had to leave for school. Sooooo, I guess you were right deception and felinusz I was wrong. I admit it.

Nice thread. We need to go back to the good ole days where pplz had "P95 24hr approved" in their sigs <mine doesnt hence the red "TESTING" in my sig >

Hmmm. Interesting. I figured out what my Prime problem was. Before, it would fail even at stock speeds, but I didn't know much about Prime, so the Priority was set to 1 and I has three programs running in the background, updating every 5 secs or so. I just ran prime at 10 Prior. and minus the programs, and it ran without failing for about 5-10 min's, but then I had to leave for school.

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Strange, I'm surprised that it wouldn't run with stuff in the background; typically it will still run, but just won't be anywhere near as thorough at weeding out instability. It's good that you got it working though .

Do you still have MBM5 running in the background? If not (if it was causing problems with Prime95), try setting it to do a readout every 60 seconds or so.

With Priority Ten on, and nothing else running, MBM5 in the background should not cause any problems. With Priority Ten, and a longer readout time, it won't steal signifigant enough amounts of "CPU Time" to bork up your stability testing either; and it's a very useful tool to have on screen for reference as you're testing with Prime.

Nice thread. We need to go back to the good ole days where pplz had "P95 24hr approved" in their sigs <mine doesnt hence the red "TESTING" in my sig>

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Thanks .

The article was good (however terribly long).

Memtest86 has been updated (11/Nov/2004). Memtest86 3.2 now exists and may be superior to Memtest86+.

Does "Toast" detect errors? I speculate it may only raise temperatures and not detect errors.

The article was good (however terribly long).

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Thanks .

I'm still waiting to see if it is possible to break the article up into multiple posts, and add an index; for ease of reading, and reference (because it *is* terribly long).

Thanks for the info on the new version of memtest86 (about time the original version of memtest86 was updated...) - I will edit the original post where neccessary.

Toast does indeed detect errors; it'd be pretty useless otherwise