[Malpine Walis]

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?

[Super]

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.

[Malpine Walis]

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.

[Monaco]

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.