Windows 7 - Hardware - Stress Test With Prime95

Jonathan_King

How to Stress Test your Hardware for Stability and Heat Problems with Prime95

Tip

Be sure to keep an eye on your temperatures when running these tests, especially the Large FFTs. I recommend the free utility Speedfan.

1. Download the appropriate 32-bit or 64-bit Windows version of Prime95 from this link: Free Software - GIMPS

You can skip down to step 2 on that page; it is not necessary to register, if all you want to do is torture test.

2. Run the Prime95.exe file. If the UAC warning appears, click "Yes" to allow it.

3. Select "Just Stress Testing" in the first window that appears.

4. Select "Small FFTs", or whatever tests someone asks you to run. Prime95 will automatically select the maximum number of threads reported by Windows in the "Number of threads to run" box.

5. Keep an eye on your temperatures, and stop the test if the machine starts to overheat.

6. Leave the test running for up to 2 hours, unless errors occur sooner. Errors will show up by one or more of the workers stopping.

Note

As with all hardware tests, Prime95 is not fail-safe. If the test passes for 2 hours with no errors, it is most likely to be stable. Unfortunately, it sometimes makes mistakes and gives a clean bill of health to faulty hardware.

Related Tutorials

smarteyeball · 07-28-2010

Don't forget to tick the 'Round off checking' option under Advanced:

Hardware - Stress Test With Prime95-round-off-checking.jpg

Otherwise you won't know if one of your cores has failed etc

(And I personally prefer Realtemp over Speedfan, but that's just my opinion)

Jonathan_King · 07-28-2010

I have no idea what round-off checking is. Is it enabled by default? When I torture tested my CPU for my overclock, I didn't mess with that at all. I knew it had failed because one of the cores suddenly stopped testing and reported errors.

Jonathan_King · 07-29-2010

Done. Now all I need is a thumbnail for it...any suggestions?

scoopeeedoo · 07-29-2010

Quote: Originally Posted by smarteyeball

(And I personally prefer Realtemp over Speedfan, but that's just my opinion)

Realtemp's only for Intel, isn't it?

Jonathan_King · 07-30-2010

Quote: Originally Posted by scoopeeedoo

Quote: Originally Posted by smarteyeball

(And I personally prefer Realtemp over Speedfan, but that's just my opinion)

Realtemp's only for Intel, isn't it?

Yes, that is correct.

Dave76 · 07-31-2010

Nice tutorial Jon, nice to be able to link to this instead of writing it all the time.

I use Realtemp as well.

CarlTR6 · 08-08-2010

Excellent! Very well done and very helpful. Thanks much.

Dave76 · 10-29-2010

Just thought I would add the CPU tempurature monitoring programs here for reference.

For Intel: Real Temp

For AMD and Intel: Core Temp

For AMD and Intel: Speedfan (as in the 'Tip' above)

I see these recommended on many forums, but others work as well.

Jonathan_King · 10-30-2010

Thank you Dave.

Windows 7 - Hardware - Stress Test With Prime95

Hardware - Stress Test With Prime95

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