What tools to use to stability test an overclock?

[Duncan]

Hi, I am just working on my first ever overclock.

I've got it overclocked and now I want to stability test it.

What are the major programs used to test overclocks?

I've got CPUZ but what i want is those types of programs that test memory and instability.



My overclock if you are interested is...

i7 860 BClk 200MHz x 15 Multiplier = 3.0GHz Clock original clock was 133MHz x auto = 2.8GHz

DRAM 1600MHz 8-8-8-24

FSB : DRAM 1:4

CPU Temp seems stable at 46 degrees centigrade using just the out the box cooling that came with the processor.

CPU Core voltage = 1.23v original was 1.19v

IMC Voltage = 1.36v original was 1.15v

I chose to raise the BClck as high as possible (200MHz) in order to get the best FSB : DRAM ratio as possible to get the best performance during memory intensive opperations as possible.

taking this approach seems to have required to IMC voltage to have been raised considerably. Although the IMC voltage is actually set to auto so it has been raised automatically.

When I get better cooling I may up the multiplier some more as long as the IMC voltage doesn't go too much higher

Thanks for your help,

Duncan

 

[Jonathan_King]

Prime95 is a popular torture-testing program:

For x64: Prime95 (64bit) - 25.8 Download - EXTREME Overclocking

For x86: Prime95 (32bit) - 25.8 Download - EXTREME Overclocking

 

[Zahl]

These are the best of the best and will bake your system. Make sure to keep an eye on the temps when running them

IntelBurnTest
Download IntelBurnTest 2.4 - Stress your computer to find out how stable it is - Softpedia
OCCT
OCCT Website english
MemTest
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

 

[Duncan]

I just ran prime 95 and I had a couple of errors....

[Wed Mar 17 01:11:32 2010]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.498046875, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

so I shut down and changed BClck down to 180MHz so a Clock of 2.7GHz actually lower than the standard.

I wasn't watching the temps in this first test though ( thanks for the warning Zahl) I just ran another test and the temps were getting very high, 80 degrees centigrade (is that very high? it seems so to me but i don't have experience to compare to) so I stopped the test although the test had run 2 tests on each worker thread and there were no failures.

Do you think that perhaps my system could have been stable during the first test and just be that I don't have adequate cooling ( I'm only using stock cooling but I only did a slight overclock)? Might it have just overheated? I couldn't be sure because I wasn't watching the temps during the first test and don't want to try the test again with that overclock unless I have better cooling.

what do you think?

 

[Jonathan_King]

70C is the point at which I'd become nervous. Personally, I wouldn't let my CPU get above 72, and my GPU 105.