Prime95 and stability

[lordbane]

Hi guys,

 

I'm curious to know something. Prime95 blend test is recommended by you folks for a system stability test.

 

I'm puzzled as to why it will fail at certain FSB/memory combinations on my system, yet:

 

1) Memtest indicates no errors in hour+ long tests

2) The system will stay up for days

3) There are no program faults / incidents of file corruption

4) No Weird Things[TM] happening that indicate a flaky system

5) I can play games for hours upon hours with no crashes, glitches or any other noticible problems

6) Any other benchmarking programs (including SuperPi) can run looped for hours with no issues

 

I guess the biggest thing I want to know is: is it possible for an overclock to be solid enough to be workable even if Prime95 blend fails?

 

Thanks

[Mysticdrew]

I've never had prime95 work for me...

[THunDA]

How fast does it fail in Prime ?

 

I think its possible to have a really stable system but yet fail in prime.. Mine is prime stable where it is but on the way up to where I am there was plently times when I was gamewindows memtest stable but not prime.. Normally that would mean more vcore ... Have you tried to lower the multi a notch or two just for testing purposes ?

 

 

THunda

 

edit..

 

What mem timings do ya use ? and is cpc on or off ? I wouldnt count memory out all together, just cuz memtest is good.. maybe prime is finding a instability that memtest doesnt show..

[RGone]

...what?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RGone...:nod:

[THunDA]

Originally posted by RGone

...what?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RGone...:nod:

 

 

:shake: :shake:

 

Sorry I had to but that was funny.. hehe

 

I dont use prime much anymore either.. Basically I use that and memtest just as a base test for stability.. then I just loop 3dmark.. Then I game the hale out of it..

[Guest jaco]

lordbane ,

I had exactly the same thing. System rockstable, still prime95 always failed.

Then I raised the vcore from 1,825 to 1,9 and I ran prime for 12 hours

So in my rig, I had to 'overvolt' the cpu a bit to be prime stable.

You might wanna try that.

 

But honestly, prime means nothing ... being able to play doom3 for hours wi!thout any hiccups or glitches is so much more important

:nod: :shake:

[lordbane]

I understand about CPC, timings, etc and I've been doing extensive testing to determine at what points my system will become unstable; how much juice I can give to the CPU and how high I can clock it before it starts failing benchmarks and at what point the memory timings/FSB are too flaky.

 

I am tinkering and documenting what I'm finding to try to figure out just how far I can push my setup without Windows exploding on me and being stable enough for everyday use (overclocking is too damn fun and addictive! ).

 

My main point I guess was: can a system be stable enough to avoid dying on you (i.e. Windows self-destructing) but not stable in Prime95? How much is just too much?

 

I'm trying to guage how much risk I want to take and I'm just wondering if I should continue using 255MHz FSB even though it's solid in everything *except* Prime95 so far, or reduce my FSB or try looser timings/CPC off (it's on right now). As I indicated above. Memtest passes, I can stay stable, game for days and no problems. But Prime95 errors out inside of 15 minutes running Blend. The CPU test passes though.

 

Thanks guys. You all amaze me with how much you seem to know about PCs. How many of you are professional technicians as opposed to just enthusiasts (just curious)?

 

 

 

[Torzi]

I'm starting to agree.... Prime is a pain in the arse. Funny thing though...I have a bootable linux version (mprime) that was stable for 24hrs on blend. It doesn't use HD (or southbridge), and only the mem controller is active on the NB. Once you get into windoze though, there's a lot more going on, and it gets extremely difficult to pinpoint what is causing the errors.

 

I'm currently using super_pi to test math stability....which doesn't seem to error unless there really is a problem. Run as many copies as it takes to fill your ram (copy the exe, and start each one individually). It takes three instances to fill my 1GB, and hit the pagefile pretty hard as well. It takes about 1 1/2 hrs for all to complete the 32M. I'll do this 8 times (12 hrs)...and if I don't get errors, call it stable.

[RGone]

:angel: ...and just that!!!

I'm trying to guage how much risk I want to take and I'm just wondering if I should continue using 255MHz FSB even though it's solid in everything *except* Prime95

 

There is very little way I would risk my data; most especially important data, to a 55 FSB overclock on any motherboard. It is not in any engineering sense a viable solution for data integrity. Might not be so bad if the entire motherboard benefitted from some variation of super cooling but just a cool cpu and a few chips cooler are not in my mind a reason to risk my data over the long extended period of accelerated performance from a chipset designed over 4 years ago to run 200 or 400DDR.

 

We had $32,000 in a race engine with titanium this and that and machining to the 0.0001 in some places and you think I would trust that overclocked small block chevy to take me to the west coast from MS? Man get real. HEhehehehehehehe. Nope and that is the same reason that my daily use computer for which I very very much must have> is clocked at so close to stock it is not funny.

 

I have pushed and tweaked and if I had a few more electronic skills would overclock my TV likely> but I am not expecting my TV to keep critical data. Hehehehehehe.

 

You are now returned to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

Sincerely, RGone...

[lordbane]

Point taken RGone.

 

I agree with you, or at least the main point you're getting across about safety and data integrity.

 

I'm just wondering if the community's general consensus is whether or not a system MUST pass that benchmark to be considered "stable", or at least stable enough to be "safe" (as in safe from Windows exploding with no survivors :eek: ).

 

I'm getting mixed opinions on here and also on the nForcersHQ site. Some people agree Prime95 is the end-all-be-all and won't run an overclocked system unless it's stable. Others struggle with it and discount it because they can run everything else just fine (kind of like the situation I'm in).

 

PS - I have all my important data burned to DVD and/or on my 120MB PATA disk, which I don't boot off of. I learned the hard way long ago how important backups are.

[RGone]

I see you are the prepared sort and I do my gaming computers/leisure rigs the same way with Images of each partition as my backup. I have the same thing on my 'must have' computer but you may well rest asssured I don't clock the pee out of it. Nope!

 

You also saw what I said above when I said>Prime; What? I did not start computering until the fall of 1998 and from that time until early 2001> I had NO idea there was such a pain in the butt as Prime95. So with NO knowledge of Prime95 and "without" my system "passing" Prime95 what do you think happened? Nothing, nada, zilch> computer ran right along just fine EVEN with my beginning forays into overclocking. No crashes no BSOD's nothing out of the ordinary> just because my system knew nothing of prime95 nor had ever had prime95 run on it.

 

however when I began to hang around nerdy, zealous, overclocking types> the shett hit the fan. If you cannot pass a fortnight of prime95 and make 1500 complete loops of 3dmark2k1 and pass memtest86 for 48 consecutive hours> you might as well turn off your computer and just crawl in a hole and die. Because if you computer does not match the stringent rules set forth by the zealot> hale you ain't even got a right to turn the thing on. Hale it could crash just any instant. Crap and a pile of it.

 

One small office setup that my brother handles maintence on 19 computers in the office> runs everyday, day in and day out and never has a single computer in the bunch had prime95 run on it. Not once. I must have just been one lucky mofo to compute my first 2 1/2 years with systems that never had had prime95 run on them. Hehehehehehehehee. Do you begin to see what I am saying for real.

 

Now if your 'bragging' rights and membership pecking order requires that you must pass prime95>then you better go pass it. However, I am not going to drive myself crazy running a program designed to stress my computer until it fails; yes I said fails, and then turn around and moan because it failed. That is the crazyness of the whole thing that amazes me. I have to be dumber than a log.

 

So I computer on and have a little fun along the way and make images in case my hard drive fails and that is that for me. You may suit yourself based on whatever your common sense dictates is how I judge it.

 

Sincerely, RGone...

[SAE]

I am also not able to prime... sometimes I think it's software related (prime, windows... drivers?)

 

I can do superpi 32m at 12x267, do 4days+ non-stop folding at max priority (so far), and play games... so what?!

 

I drop prime as a stability tester as it's also dependant on software (I remember times of the old via 4in1 driver packs, there was one package I never could prime with as otherds could not do that... I installed the previous driver and it worked...)

 

If your system is stable and does not cause ANY problems, so... why not keep the settings