What is "burn in"? Do I need it?

I have heard quite a bit about burning in a new computer but I really do not understand the concept.

Some of the vendors I have looked at offer "testing" before they ship new components but they do not bother to qualify what that means. I have heard of people doing a burn in for X number of hours but an unqualified statement by a vendor could mean that they only boot-up a system and then say "yah, it works" and then send it off to me.

Is burn in something that I need to do to make sure that my new hardware will work?

Is it a torture test to see what my hardware will take?

Is it something else entirely?

Is it none of the above?

Burning in your CPU means to run it at default speed, but with higher voltage (higher than default). Run it at a load that is.

Overclockers use it to "break in" the chip. It helps it overclock better. A new CPU will need about 24 hours of breaking in, but a CPU that is about 2-3+ mnth old will need about 12. It all depends on the chip. Some might not need a lot of time, some might need lots more.

You might want to do that if you're going to overclock. As I said, it will help you overclock to higher speeds.

So if I was not going to overclock, then it would not do anything useful?

What I am dealing with is a replacement computer that I bought because it was what I could afford when the first one died. I was never satisfied with that machine. Now that I can afford to spend some real money, I want to build a machine with all first rate parts. Hopefully, I will get a machine that treats me well and an upgrade path that does not mean replacing the whole system unit every three years.

As far as overclocking goes, I am migrating form a K6.2 333MHZ to an Atholon XP. I lurked on the boards for about a month before my first post and now that I know what is going on, I see the possibility of overclocking in my future but my first priority is to get a good machine and get it set up in a standard config.

After that, I can get some baseline performance scores and onluy then will I try to see if I can do better.

aside from the whole idea of burn-in maybe helping your components overclock, it's a guarantee from the shop that all the components work ok, and that it doesn't get spontaneous blue screens or anything.