hmmmm, stability, your thoughts

turbotoaster · 30 Jun 2006 at 09:09

been thinking about what we all class as stabilty.

eg i can run 3.0ghz for 2hrs prime, yet i can run snm for 24hrs at that.

i think prime and snm work in a different way, for example, you can be dual super pi 32mb stable with takes ie 25mins but fail prime instantly.

thats the difference super pi, snm cpu burn, etc are bench stable, which means that any errors that are small enough will not affect the scores will carry on but with prime being so sensitive it will pick them up straight away

if you watch snm and are doing a task as well u will notice that the clock stops when u are clicking on something or making an app do a task, normaly i think prime would fail at that point but snm ignores the errors, waits till it doesnt error then continues on.

so what does anybody choose when they class as stable, im going for the snm 24hr jobby, cause playing games is just like benching, so as long as it doesnt crash thats how its gonna stay

your imput would be appriecated

thanks

Lee

Mikey1280 · 30 Jun 2006 at 09:14

Are you sure you have s&m on the right settings? I'd be surprised if you were s&m stable but not prime stable. I have all tests selected, have changed the load to 100%, and have changed to the long or looped test, this works much better for me than prime.

Jokester · 30 Jun 2006 at 09:22

SnM should only really be used for CPU testing only and more specifically the FPU test. This will get your processor hotter like no other program and it can kill hardware!

Prime also has dependencies on memory and chipset (depending on CPU) so is a better system test, though you should be looking at Memtest for memory first anyway.

Jokester

FreeStream · 30 Jun 2006 at 10:22

Stability = the ability to run 24/7 at full load runnings folding at home without falling over, crashing, locking or failing W/Us.

Otherwise tis no game

Run something for 48 hours, folding at home tis best

Cyber-Mav · 30 Jun 2006 at 10:27

don't run snm for 48 hours unless you got your side panel off and a desk fan blowing in. snm will blow your board or cpu up if your system is not up to the job.

snm fpu test is proper hardcore.

FreeStream · 30 Jun 2006 at 10:35

Cyber-Mav said:
don't run snm for 48 hours unless you got your side panel off and a desk fan blowing in. snm will blow your board or cpu up if your system is not up to the job.

snm fpu test is proper hardcore.

Eh!? LMAO, in my years I've NEVER seen a PC blow up, fires yes, but not from overclocked air cooled PCs. S&M will crash/stop/freeze the system if there is any instability. Therefore the system is at idle or under idle load so there is no problem.

Jokester · 30 Jun 2006 at 10:37

Concorde Rules said:
Eh!? LMAO, in my years I've NEVER seen a PC blow up, fires yes, but not from overclocked air cooled PCs. S&M will crash/stop/freeze the system if there is any instability. Therefore the system is at idle or under idle load so there is no problem.

Ask Bundles.

Jokester

FreeStream · 30 Jun 2006 at 10:56

Jokester said:
Ask Bundles.

Jokester

Yea, but your mental you lot

If it blows up it is a sign of weakness and should be sent back, reducing testing time is not the way to go about it.

Cyber-Mav · 30 Jun 2006 at 12:16

stuff that blows on a regular basis: mosfets and psus. seen it happen many times.

took snm into work once where there were loads of barnd new HP p4 3ghz machines. ran snm on 2 machines. one's psu blew after 30 mins and the other one i stopped manually when the core temp reached 94c. :eek:

best you beginners stick to prime and not bother with snm unless you got the cash to replace your sub par hardware

FreeStream · 30 Jun 2006 at 12:20

Cyber-Mav said:
stuff that blows on a regular basis: mosfets and psus. seen it happen many times.

took snm into work once where there were loads of barnd new HP p4 3ghz machines. ran snm on 2 machines. one's psu blew after 30 mins and the other one i stopped manually when the core temp reached 94c.

best you beginners stick to prime and not bother with snm unless you got the cash to replace your sub par hardware

So that wouldn't of happened in normal loaded operation? PSU blowing just because of CPU load is BS, if it was a game and it crashed, maybe. If you had loaded up Photoshop or something equally strenuous would it have blown?

Edit: and you cant really critise how we test out PCs, mine is better than yours and mine is stable, I used Prime95 for the first 24 hours at 2.4ghz to check that F@H would not fall over every 5 mins, and it didn't.

Cyber-Mav · 30 Jun 2006 at 12:44

up to you how you test your pc's for stability. if prime's your man then let it prime. but if you come across a game one day that is heavily cpu dependant and your pc crashes then fair play to you.

i work as a systems engineer so i have seen my fair share of equipment blow up in the past. a heavy current draw placed by a power hungry cpu can blow a flaky psu and board mosfets will blow on cheaper quality motherboards or defective boards. an overclocked cpu will be even more hungry and you could easily see blown mosfets or voltage regulators on crappy boards.

FreeStream · 30 Jun 2006 at 12:47

Cyber-Mav said:
up to you how you test your pc's for stability. if prime's your man then let it prime. but if you come across a game one day that is heavily cpu dependant and your pc crashes then fair play to you.

i work as a systems engineer so i have seen my fair share of equipment blow up in the past. a heavy current draw placed by a power hungry cpu can blow a flaky psu and board mosfets will blow on cheaper quality motherboards or defective boards. an overclocked cpu will be even more hungry and you could easily see blown mosfets or voltage regulators on crappy boards.

When you said S&N caused PSUs to blow and CPU to overheat, do you think Prime95 would have caused the same issues?

What is the point of stability testing? To show off or to find out if your system is stable? If something dies, crashes, burns out or whatever then it isnt stable, this is better than not being at your PC and/or doing some important work.

Stability program are an INDICATION of stability. Nothing more. 1 months usage is the best indication of stability.

Cyber-Mav · 30 Jun 2006 at 13:01

prime only pushes a cpu to 85% of its maximum capabilities so majority of systems built should be able to handle the load. then you also have to take into account different environmental issues.

you think a hp or ibm pre built system is gonna have case cooling as good as your own built machine. i doubt it. also many other factors to take into account.