Should I trust Prime95 only?

[Kango]

I just got myself a 2100+ and currently I'm at 2.3Ghz. But when I ran Prime95 it gave me ILLEGAL OUTPUT for the torture task. However, when I ran PCMark02 with includes cpu,memory, and little video tests for straight 9hrs it didn't crash and seem very stable. So what do you think, is my system stable or not?

 

[SiliconX]

The best stability setup(IMO):

- Prime95 for 24 hours
- memtest86 for 12-24 hours
- 3DMark2001SE looped for 12-24 hours

If it doesn't pass all of the above(yes, all), then it isn't stable.

If Prime fails. Try it again. If it keeps failing, then no, your system isn't stable.

 

[anvil82]

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=191140



Tribes 2

 

[altec]

What SiliconX said id a good suggestion. Use Prime95 to test your CPU's stability, 3DMark to test your AGP stability at the speeds you are running, and memtest86 to test your memory's stability at the speed you are running. Run them all for 4-8 hours to see if the machine is stable, or more if you feel like it.

 

[SiliconX]

3DMark is a decent overall test as well. Most of the time, your CPU usage will be at 100% and your ram usage will be right up there as well, but don't count on 3DMark as your only stability test.

There's a reason everyone recommends Prime95

 

[Syphere]

I always run Prime95 to test it. I don't consider Folding or SETI to be very good tests though. There will be times when at a new higher clock speed, I can fold for like 20 hours or more with no problems at all. But if I start running Prime95, it won't last 5 minutes.

 

[killer7]

3DMark03 is very stressing, but unless you have the version you pay for you cannot loop it.

 

[q149]

Toast is pretty good as well... it seems to stress the cpu more than prime95, or produce higher temps at least.

 

[Mark Larson]

Your machine is only as stable as the least stable program.

 

[RaiNZerO]

Another vote for toast... this made my cpu way hotter then prime. it will also crash your system very quickly if its not stable...

 

[Kango]

Cool... Let me try some of these progs tonight.

 

[altec]

If you are testing a bunch, also try CPU Burn-in...it is a very good stability test as well...seems to get my CPU hotter than both toast and Prime.

 

[IceMan3928]

I always run Prime95 to test it. I don't consider Folding or SETI to be very good tests though. There will be times when at a new higher clock speed, I can fold for like 20 hours or more with no problems at all. But if I start running Prime95, it won't last 5 minutes.

are you running folding with the gromacs core and the -forceasm flag on? I have yet to find a better stablity tester than gromacs with forced assembly optimizations.

 

[zabomb4163]

I get hotter temps running Prime95 and folding@home at the same time.

 

[sandman001]

Where can I get memtest86?

 

[anvil82]

Where can I get memtest86?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=memtest86

 

[Audioaficionado]

I'm running FAH gromacs and I'd hate to lose points while P95 ran. I know if I'm starting to get unstable as the WU just stalls and won't run. If I slow it down, then it runs again.

 

[False Christian]

If Prime95 gives you an error like 'Illegal Sumout' or a rounding error you have to raise the voltage until Prime95 can run for at least 24 hours unmolested. This is the best program to burn in your CPU as it uses 100% of the CPU 100% of the time. Before burning in I could only get to 2.3GHz (11.5x200) on my Athlon XP 2400+ (2.0GHz) but now I can get to 2.5GHz (12.5x200) and I am now working on 2.6GHz.

 

[-=TriX-R4-KidS=]

prime95 is a good memory stability tester as well.

 

[Mustanley]

It's funny, at my current speeds, Prime95 runs for hours without a hitch, but less than 5 minutes into playing Battlefield 1942, I get a core dump every time. AGP is locked at 66 MHz, vid card is not overclocked, and backing down to 166 FSB fixes the crashes.