IntelBurnTest - The new stress-testing program

[Amurtigress]

Hello,

I seem to have solved the basic stability issues for my system now.

So far, any moving away from a NB voltage of 1.32V meant an increasing frequency of prime errors.

Last night my PC was priming for 7 h 20 min. stable with no errors at a NB volt. of 1.28V, using the 24.14 Prime for 64 bit Windows. the only thing I changed was....

PCI-E Frequency from 100 Mhz to 101.

I ahve heard before that this shall have solved stability issues since the ASUS P5B series, but it never did for me. Anyway, for those who are suffering prime issues, enable this for a test and let us know what it does for you. I know it doesn't sound very plausable, but it is entirely possible that this is changing a strap within your intel chipset that makes it all stable.

This applies most likely to all Intel chipsets and ASUS boards since the P965 chipsets. For example, P965, X975, P31/33/35, X38, X48, P45, etc.

[Razmatazz]

Hello,

I seem to have solved the basic stability issues for my system now.

So far, any moving away from a NB voltage of 1.32V meant an increasing frequency of prime errors.

Last night my PC was priming for 7 h 20 min. stable with no errors at a NB volt. of 1.28V, using the 24.14 Prime for 64 bit Windows. the only thing I changed was....

PCI-E Frequency from 100 Mhz to 101.

I ahve heard before that this shall have solved stability issues since the ASUS P5B series, but it never did for me. Anyway, for those who are suffering prime issues, enable this for a test and let us know what it does for you. I know it doesn't sound very plausable, but it is entirely possible that this is changing a strap within your intel chipset that makes it all stable.

This applies most likely to all Intel chipsets and ASUS boards since the P965 chipsets. For example, P965, X975, P31/33/35, X38, X48, P45, etc.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this. So...changing the PCI-E frequency will change a strap? I'm not very knowlegable about this frequency. I will definataly give this a try though. I am still searching for the answer as to why I am BurnTest and Prime stable at 400 MHz but become Prime unstable with only a small increase in FSB to 425 MHz. (This is only 25 MHz above default on the FSB). No one else seems to have had any solid advice regarding the IBT/Prime discrepancy that several others have been experiencing as well.

[vannguyen0]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this. So...changing the PCI-E frequency will change a strap? I'm not very knowlegable about this frequency. I will definataly give this a try though. I am still searching for the answer as to why I am BurnTest and Prime stable at 400 MHz but become Prime unstable with only a small increase in FSB to 425 MHz. (This is only 25 MHz above default on the FSB). No one else seems to have had any solid advice regarding the IBT/Prime discrepancy that several others have been experiencing as well.

I mentioned this to a buddy and he said that it's helping him. I too can't seem to get it to 425mhz fsb... although 400mhz is working like a charm. I'll give this a shot - we'll see what happens.

[bartx]

IBT is great software to testing stability. Much better than Orthos/Prime95. Before, I used to 3D Mark 2005 Cpu Test, which also stress CPU much - if something is unstable, I've got a reboot. I don't like Orthos, because it takes too much time and I wasn't sure about stability. Now, 5 passes are enough (on my CPU about 180-200 seconds). But my E6420 gets really hot

[Singh400]

Managed to BSOD my PC with this. Left my voltage [a little] too high, and the temps went straight into the 70s. 10-20 seconds later, PC BSOD'ed and I had to reset everything.

This program ROCKS.

[mikeyakame]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this. So...changing the PCI-E frequency will change a strap? I'm not very knowlegable about this frequency. I will definataly give this a try though. I am still searching for the answer as to why I am BurnTest and Prime stable at 400 MHz but become Prime unstable with only a small increase in FSB to 425 MHz. (This is only 25 MHz above default on the FSB). No one else seems to have had any solid advice regarding the IBT/Prime discrepancy that several others have been experiencing as well.

It doesn't change a strap, what it may do though is create a situation unknowingly where the phase locked loop oscillator frequency adjusts enough to reduce jitter in certain scenarios or interference at certain frequencies. I've noticed this same phenomenon on my current Nvidia GTX280, certain frequencies alter stability. Assumed is that there is some kind of jitter or external interference that doesn't interfere or dirty the signal so much.

[Amurtigress]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this. So...changing the PCI-E frequency will change a strap? I'm not very knowlegable about this frequency. I will definataly give this a try though. I am still searching for the answer as to why I am BurnTest and Prime stable at 400 MHz but become Prime unstable with only a small increase in FSB to 425 MHz. (This is only 25 MHz above default on the FSB). No one else seems to have had any solid advice regarding the IBT/Prime discrepancy that several others have been experiencing as well.

It is just a guess that it could be an internal clock divider or something else the BIOS does when going away from the default clock. I wish I knew more about the internals, myself.

<edit> Erm, I just saw mikeyakame's post on this... </edit>

My first 7:20h run was done at FSB 433, last night I cranked my Q9300 up to FSB 460 with no voltage changes, and it ran stable for 7:30h again. At around 470 my board bails out with a FSB wall, but I knew about it before I bought it.

Currently running my Q9300 at 3455 MHz, and happily stable!

I'm looking forward to your results. Frankly, having such a CPU and hitting a wall at 425 is nasty. But the X38 chipset is known to not overclock well on 45 nm Quads. Hence my change to the P5Q3 board....I had the Maximus Formula myself. It crapped out at 436.