Stability Testing Programs...

[OldGuy]

I dont get what it does...just calculations, what does it have to do with stability...?

 

If it can't make it through a particular calculation then you have a stability issue...Any one of these benchmarks and stress tests that fails is telling you your system aint 100%. You may be going through the day to day without any problems and that may be fine for you. I know I had a problem with random re-boots on an Asus P4 setup wich wasn't a big deal till it decided to reboot during a DVD burn...not fun. After I built up an nF3 rig I went back to the old P4 to see if I could figure out what the problem was. Turned out that particular P4 2.4 Northwood didn't like SiS or VIA chipsets. Runs solid as a rock with Intel 865 chipset...So just because something is listed as "compatible" doesn't always make it so. If you have any intentions of doing something like "folding" you need your rig to be 100%. If yer just gonna play games and don't care if yer puter locks up once in awhile then skip all the benchies and have fun :nod:

[racinjimy]

for stuff like folding or BOINC you need to be totally rock stable, I agree.

 

by stable I mean >8 hours memtest and prime95 stable

[Vista]

I dont get what it does...just calculations, what does it have to do with stability...?

Everything your system does depends on calculations. Everything boils down to 2+2=4. If it comes up 3.999 or 4.001, you might skate by or you might end up corrupting your HDD and have weird BSODs. Whenever your system claims 2+2 is not 4 you should be worried.

[Mr Stom]

If prime sticks on the first test, it can be because prime has over allocated your memory size. If you choose "custom" instead of "blend" and tell it to use maximum memory of 768MB, that should sort it, and it`ll be the equivalent of running blend as normal.

[PSS]

^ Ok thanks Mr. Stom, I'll try that now.

[Shinobi]

If prime sticks on the first test, it can be because prime has over allocated your memory size. If you choose "custom" instead of "blend" and tell it to use maximum memory of 768MB, that should sort it, and it`ll be the equivalent of running blend as normal.

The reason it does that is because there is a bug in version 23.8. There has been a new one out for a while now that fixes this bug but for some reason the main site still links to the old 23.8 version:

http://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v238.zip

 

The correct url for the bug fixed version 24.6 is:

http://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v246.zip

 

Or maybe even this one which is said to be better for A64's.

http://www.mersenne.org/gimps/p95v2411.zip

 

Just download that and problem solved