Is Prime95 a reliable hardware test?

[Daemorok]

I have been having random BSODs some with errors, some where the screen just turns blue and, thats it. They usually happen when gaming (Quake3 rocket areana, and Counter-Strike).

The windows install was fresh as of about a month ago, and ive crashed 3 or 4 times since then. My windows is tweaked a little, but the only major "hack" is the theme dll swap so i can run themes without styleXP or whatever.

So hardware specs:
A7n8x ultra400 standard.
AMD XP 3200+
2x512 Corsair 3200LL 2-2-2-6
Sapphire 9600xt
SB Audigy1
Winfast TV 2000 XP Deluxe (TV tuner)

WD 250 jb
WD 200 jb
lite-on DVDROM
lite-on 52x CDRW

enermax 550w PSU

Nothing is OCd or has been.
The ram is running at 2.7v

I have run memtest, goldmem, and msinst for at least 8 hours each on seperate occasions, with the ram running stock except for the 2.7v
and have never gotten any errors.

When I run prime95(version 23.8.1) tourture test It always fails somewhere along the line.
It could take hours, or minutes, or seconds. Lately it dies on the first test.

When I BSOD from gaming its a random amount of time, I have had it crash minutes after i load the game, and it has crashed after playing for over an hour.

I am thinking that maybe I should get new ram. I have had this ram for awhile, and I have changed the mobo and CPU and still get these issues.

 

[Matthias99]

The Prime95 "blend" torture test, in my experience, is even tougher than memtest, since it stresses the CPU much more. Odds are your memory is slightly unstable at its current settings; you might try backing off the timings a bit and see if that helps.

 

[biostud]

Prime95 is a CPU test, it stresses the CPU. Most useful to check stability when overclocking.

 

[Daemorok]

I was using the blend torture test. The memory timings are the stock timings for that ram. I have run the MS memory tester at 2226 and 2326 and it has never failed.
But I am still leaning towards ram.

biostud666: The prime95 documentation claims that the "blend tourture test" is also very ram intensive.

 

[Sonic587]

Sounds like you might be encountering temp problems. Might want to up your vcore a bit, too( if temps aren't a problem). What are the readouts that MBM5 gives you?

 

[DarkKnight]

i always use prime95 to test if my overlclocks are stable. Recently found out that my CPU at 3000+ failed after 10hrs in prime95(priority 10). Guess I'm gonna have to clock down or do something with my voltage

 

[Daemorok]

I am not OCd at all, I seriously doubt its a temp problem

CPU HSF is a Swiftech MCX462V with a 92mm vantec tornado.
Northbirdge cooler is aSwiftech MCX159.
The case is a lian li PC65B moving about 100cfm in and 100cfm out using 4 sunon 80mm fans

Last I checked in my bios my CPU temp hovers around 40C under load.

I am currently running the least RAM intensive test on Prime95 and it hasnt failed yet.

 

[Sonic587]

I'd still try upping the Vcore a bit and see if it helps. Maybe even the chipset voltage a bit if that doesn't help.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

F@H Gromacs > P95TT

 

[Daemorok]

At the suggestion of a friend I ran Memtest86+. I have run memtest86 and mtinst.exe before on this ram, but never Memtest86+. So after about 8 hours I had 2100 errors all in the last 100megs of ram. So this pretty much explains it, I have to call corsair.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: Daemorok
I am not OCd at all, I seriously doubt its a temp problem

CPU HSF is a Swiftech MCX462V with a 92mm vantec tornado.
Northbirdge cooler is aSwiftech MCX159.
The case is a lian li PC65B moving about 100cfm in and 100cfm out using 4 sunon 80mm fans

Last I checked in my bios my CPU temp hovers around 40C under load.

I am currently running the least RAM intensive test on Prime95 and it hasnt failed yet.

My ears hurt just thinking about that! :Q:Q

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: Daemorok
At the suggestion of a friend I ran Memtest86+. I have run memtest86 and mtinst.exe before on this ram, but never Memtest86+. So after about 8 hours I had 2100 errors all in the last 100megs of ram. So this pretty much explains it, I have to call corsair.

Therefore the answer to your question: "Is Prime95 a reliable hardware test?" is NO. MemTest86 rules yet another day in the Memory Testing arena. Are we suprised? Nope.

Thorin

 

[sharkeeper]

At the suggestion of a friend I ran Memtest86+. I have run memtest86 and mtinst.exe before on this ram, but never Memtest86+. So after about 8 hours I had 2100 errors all in the last 100megs of ram. So this pretty much explains it, I have to call corsair.

Try running Prime95 to use as much physical memory as possible without paging excessively.

Also with HT CPU's, it is necessary to run two instances of P95 (using half the suggested ram above for each instance!) in order to stress the CPU the most. I know that this does NOT apply to the OP but make this a point anyways...

Cheers!

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: thorin

Originally posted by: Daemorok
At the suggestion of a friend I ran Memtest86+. I have run memtest86 and mtinst.exe before on this ram, but never Memtest86+. So after about 8 hours I had 2100 errors all in the last 100megs of ram. So this pretty much explains it, I have to call corsair.

Therefore the answer to your question: "Is Prime95 a reliable hardware test?" is NO. MemTest86 rules yet another day in the Memory Testing arena. Are we suprised? Nope.

Thorin

How can you say this when Prime95 failed everytime he ran it? By failing it showed something was wrong on his system. If everything is at stock setting it's either usually temp or bad ram.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: Naustica

Originally posted by: thorin

Originally posted by: Daemorok
At the suggestion of a friend I ran Memtest86+. I have run memtest86 and mtinst.exe before on this ram, but never Memtest86+. So after about 8 hours I had 2100 errors all in the last 100megs of ram. So this pretty much explains it, I have to call corsair.

Therefore the answer to your question: "Is Prime95 a reliable hardware test?" is NO. MemTest86 rules yet another day in the Memory Testing arena. Are we suprised? Nope.

Thorin

How can you say this when Prime95 failed everytime he ran it? By failing it showed something was wrong on his system. If everything is at stock setting it's either usually temp or bad ram.

That's simple. Any program could have errored out, it just happens that in his case it was Prime. Plus the fact that Prime didn't detect the error it only suffered from it.

Thorin