Prime 95 ???????????

[jimmyj68]

I've seen prime 95 referenced a hundred times and must dmit i havrn't a clue about it. If I download it, how do i operate it? What will it be doing to my computer? What results should i expect?

 

[xtknight]

At AnandTech, it's known as the overclock stability tester. What it actually does is try to find the biggest prime number but it also happens to stress the CPU more than most things. If you don't overclock, you shouldn't worry about it. You should already be 100% stable (no crashes or freezes). When you overclock to an unstable level, crashes are rampant and Prime95 is the easiest way to identify said problems before it's too late.

 

[m3rcury]

Its a program you can use to stress test your computer.

Link:
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

You can download it, set the option to "stress test", and let it run for a few hours. If it says that it encountered errors, that means your system isn't 100% stable. If it runs fine then its a good indication that your system is fine.

The other option (i.e not stress test) will run the program in distributed computing mode, where it'll help find large prime numbers (of a certain kind, namely mersenne primes).

 

[jimmyj68]

OK thanks - I'm gonna run it to see how well my cooling setup works. After considerable fan swapping I'm finally satisfied with the noise level and the apparent cooling. My P-160 case interior temp is 26 right now in an ambient temp of 22.

 

[Zugzwang152]

run prime95 and a video card benchmark and/or copy some large files between your hdd's. that'll stress the whole system, and really test your cooling.

 

[theMan]

another proggie to try, is S&M. i think its a better stresser than p95.