A question of stress tests

[Josh Weston]

Intel Burn Test seems to be the more extreme out of itself and Prime95 - much higher temperatures are yielded over a 30 minute period (around 8-9 degrees higher than Prime)

Now...why is it that although the more intensive IBT says my CPU and it's overclock is just dandy, and yet Prime keeps giving me errors? It's confusing me somewhat.

I'm running a 3770K at 4.5GHz 1.21v with a Noctua set to low. Closed case,

 

[SieB]

If you can run IBT fine, i'd trust that more in terms of stability seen as it is more intensive than Prime.

It's similar to F@H as well, Prime is more intensive than F@H but you can be Prime stable but not F@H stable.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Do you get BSOD's with prime?

 

[seumasbeathan]

Intel Burn Test seems to be the more extreme out of itself and Prime95 - much higher temperatures are yielded over a 30 minute period (around 8-9 degrees higher than Prime)

Now...why is it that although the more intensive IBT says my CPU and it's overclock is just dandy, and yet Prime keeps giving me errors? It's confusing me somewhat.

I'm running a 3770K at 4.5GHz 1.21v with a Noctua set to low. Closed case,

Isn't that quite a low voltage for an onverclock like that?

 

[yassarikhan786]

Isn't that quite a low voltage for an onverclock like that?

It does seem very low, but he might 'av won the silicone lottery

 

[SieB]

It's not low it's normal for Ivy Bridge.

 

[Josh Weston]

If you can run IBT fine, i'd trust that more in terms of stability seen as it is more intensive than Prime.

It's similar to F@H as well, Prime is more intensive than F@H but you can be Prime stable but not F@H stable.

Right you are, thankyou. I'll run IBT for 100 runs to make sure everything's absolutely fine.

Do you get BSOD's with prime?

BSODs no, but one of the workers generally fail and mucks it all up.

Isn't that quite a low voltage for an onverclock like that?

Well, I had it set to 1.25v at first but I thought that it was getting too hot. Spent a good part of 4 hours last night getting the voltages down through trial and error, using IBT, and 1.21 seems just fine. I have two intake fans, the 'D14 and then an exhaust fan - all of them are set to 7v because they're all bloody noisy. I don't know if I've been blessed with some bloody fantastic hearing but the 'D14, 'F12 and 'S12b are NOT quiet at 12v. Or maybe i just have a lot of faulty fans.

I mean I have the Fractal R3- a case meant for silence. I thought spending £20 per fan would allow me to run them at full speed all the time, but alas, it has not been the case so far.

 

[SieB]

As good as IBT is for testing stability though, as long as your rig is stable doing what you use it for, I wouldn't worry. You will never beast your CPU as hard doing everyday stuff compared to how much IBT and Prime beast your CPU.

 

[Josh Weston]

As good as IBT is for testing stability though, as long as your rig is stable doing what you use it for, I wouldn't worry. You will never beast your CPU as hard doing everyday stuff compared to how much IBT and Prime beast your CPU.

Ah I know, but it's always nice to have that sense of security when IBT pops up the success window.

Now, another thing I was wondering about, and it makes sense to include it in this thread, is there anything else that I should be enabling/disabling in the BIOS to help with stability etc?

All i've done is bump the multiplier up, set to 1.21 volts (although I have to do that in Windows, as the BIOS option seems to be locked). Just wondering if it would be possible to either get those volts lower or perhaps push for 4.6 if I enabled something or clicked something else. Perhaps i'll get some screenshots from the BIOS so you can all see the options available; there's a lot of stuff that's just gibberish to me.

Edit:

 

[SieB]

Only thing that will help with stability in the BIOS really is LLC, the higher you set it the higher it will raise the load voltage though but it will help prevent Vdroop and improve stability. Turning off turbo boost, speedstep and any power saving settings will help as well.

 

[Josh Weston]

Well then, it seems as though i've done all I can - unless i'm missing something from the screenshots?

Thankyou kindly - now to get started on the 100 runs

 

[SieB]

Everything in the screen shots looks fine, all good to go

 

[airdeano]

100 runs of intel burn test? if it cant fail in 5-10 tests your wasting your time.

ibt for 5 runs, LinX (LinX or OCCT) for a cpu/memory test. and done.

your power bill is gunna drain your wallet with 100 ibt. you wanna test it, not

destroy it.

airdeano

 

[Josh Weston]

The tests are already done, 5 hours or so later - it passed...but it did get rather hot. I'll also put that down to the fact that we've had the heating on constant to try and dry the influx of washing due to coming back from holiday.

I'll download OCCT now.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

If you can run IBT fine, i'd trust that more in terms of stability seen as it is more intensive than Prime.

It's similar to F@H as well, Prime is more intensive than F@H but you can be Prime stable but not F@H stable.

Just because it is more intensive does not mean anything. It could be doing utilizing the CPU differently. Example: when I OC to 5.5ghz I can run prime all day, cinibench, 3dmark and every other benching program, but once I jump into BF3 I BSOD.

 

[SieB]

Just because it is more intensive does not mean anything. It could be doing utilizing the CPU differently. Example: when I OC to 5.5ghz I can run prime all day, cinibench, 3dmark and every other benching program, but once I jump into BF3 I BSOD.

Which is why I don't use Prime or any other stress test to test stability, I test stability by doing what I do on my PC. If it doesn't crash doing the things I do, then to me, it's stable. Yeah it might crash in Prime but me and 90% of other people will never do anything which will stress their CPU as much as Prime.