Stability testing with multiple programs, bad or good idea?

Looking for the sweet spot for overclocking, of course use dual prime95.
Question, is it a good idea to run multiple programs when doing this, such as e.g. 3dmark03 and others?
Im finding that prime95 will still be running and the other programs may crash or possible lock up the system.

2x Prime95 = ok upto high overclocks for over a day
2x Prime95 + 3dmark03 = crash with prime95 still running or total lock up, in a few mintues to a few hours.
2x Prime95 + 3dmark01 = fine, most of the time, but can crash after 6-12 hours.

Im unsure about stability testing, how it should be conducted. I am seriously having trouble finding what is the actual 100% stable overclock.

Testing with multiple programs, bad idea? Yes or No, or should I be able to run several programs at once and it the system be able to absolutly everything?

Well lets see..

Your not running them at the same time are you?

Im not sure of all of them but some can cause each other to fail

How long are you running 2 x Prime 95? what tests?

Id imagine there are programs that go well togheter like Memtest and Prime.. if you can pas both for 24+hours your prob good to go..

But id imagine that if it passes Duel prime and not 3DMark would be related to a graphics issue? perhaps?

Even a stock CPU is expected to fail a 24 hour period of prime95, what's probably happening is the operating system causing problems with disk and ram caching... i find that dual-primes cause a memory leak and i end up with 1.8gb of information on my ram - obviously it cant so it falls on to disc. For this reason, eventually you are going to have problems when the game and prime are using all the ram for thier active thread(s) and will keep "kicking" eachother on to disk (HDD) which is probably what is causing your lockups.

That said, if you dont have this memory leak i have experienced, and the fact that the synthetic benchmark doesnt use much RAM it would well be something else. Needless to say, i have little faith in window's ability to manage swapfile correctly.

~t0m

Yeah I get the feeling that its all ok?
I took my overclock spec out of my sig, since I keep changing the values, and cannot decide if stable at whatever speed im running at. I seem to think I should be able to dump anything all at the same time on the system and it be stable. With 2x prime, already stressing the system at 100%, how can there be any room for other things to run stable?
I always run both primes, Torture Test, In-place large FFT's (maximum heat, power comsumption, some RAM tested)

2x Prime95 for almost 2 days until I stopped the test, no errors (@ 3.6 GHz). OK
Memtest I can loop for over a day at 2226 and GAT set to F1 at 225 MHz, no errors. OK

It will run either 3dmark03 or 01 fine without prime95 running, looping without crashing or lockuping the system. OK

As for the gfx card. It is very stable, I have now resorted to running it under spec during testing to cancel out the gfx card being the limiting factor. (card is fully modded correctly with excellent cooling)

Run each one at a time, all OK.
If I try and mix it up, hence dual prime95, plus something else at the same time that stresses, I will run into a problem sooner or later. Now I am down at 3.4 GHz and no GAT, timings 2337 and still will crash or lock, if I run multiple stability testing (always with 2 primes + some other(s) programs).

i do this very thing all the time ill run 2 instances of prime95 and then crank out a 32m superpi while running a 3dmark03. imho its the only way to really test your psu to make sure its able to handle an overclock (this is especially true with power hungry prescotts)

ill just try and throw as much crap up as i can something that works the hdd the memory the cpu and the videocard all going at once. ive found my computer can do it all if its really stable and will start showing signs of a unstable overclock alot sooner than letting 2 instances of prime run for 24 hours or more.

what kind of psu are you using microfire?

Exermax EG651P-VE(FMA) - 550w

Yeah, prime will run forever. As well with ATITool run 3D cube or scan for artifacts.
Even if 03 drops out but does not lockup, it will say something like "corrupt file ¬*«z~" <--something like that.

I think its the motherboard? When I had the 3.2C in the machine I never had a problem, this new EE must draw to much current for it. Could be the extra dimms? (I think it did the same thing with the only 2 Mushkin modules in place, can't remember, takes so long to change and test everything)

The 1GB of Mushkin 3500 Lv2 will do the boards maximum, which is 237 MHz at 2226 F1
The 512MB of TwinMos 3200 value will do 234 MHz at 2226 F1.
With all modules, its 225 MHz memtest stable, also prime stable. Around 230 is where is will flake out, but...
I am way down at only 212fsb, and I am having these problems.

Think this was when I was running just 1GB.
http://img86.echo.cx/img86/9448/56hrs36001575vdualp951ay.jpg

Thanks for the help.
I think I got it sussed now, the motherboard just will not take 4xBH-5 and run 100% stable at any speed.
I come to this conclusion after running stock 3.2 GHz ans 2337 no GAT and it still crashed when running multiple stress programs. I removed the extra memory and its ok now to 3.6 GHz with 2xBH-5.
Over 3.6 GHz the EE cpu starts to draws more current than the motherboard can deal with.
Im am now aiming for 3.66, but I may have to settle for less. Though 3.6 the above post is relistic with just 2 modules, 4 modules is out of the question

I think 3.6 GHz at stock 1.55v would be ~180watts and about 110+ amps draw. I think I am limited by the CPU (more likely the motherboards ability to supply enough amps to the cpu).

In my experience, you should never run Prime95 at the same time as any other program. If you run Prime95 at Priority Level Ten (with two instances for processors with HT), it is more effective when run by itself than it is when run together with anything else.

However, you should test for stability with several seperate programs - in the sense that no single program is sufficiently stressful on the various parts of your machine to root out any and all potential for instability. I like to use Prime95, memtest86, and the 3DMark01 Nature test looped, each run seperately.

It could handle each program seperately with 4 dimms loaded, but could not run 2x P95 + 3dmark03 at the same time

Now that I am back to 2 dimms only. I have run 2x P95 + 3dmark03 for 12 hours, no problem @ 3.64 GHz / 227.5 FSB. Vcore ranges underload 1.63-1.65v

Found a nice little tweak, SR-A3DD is as fast (if not faster than) F1-EADD.
The Read Delay (tRD) set at 3, does something to boost memory performance (don't ask me why, it just works!), unbuffered is around 3400 mb/s, buffered 5666 mb/s.

Yeah, think multiple programs is the way to go.
I will try and increase the Priority Level to Ten like you said. Only really get time to do testing overnight, since I have to use the computer at some stage.