Hardware Stress-Testing HOWTO

[Gemüsemann]

Hardware Testing

Premise:
The idea is to catch potential hardware/software problems before they blow up in your face during battle day.

Tools:
We will be using the following programs to test each subsystem. Click to download.
Cpuz
StressPrime 2004
Memtest86
3DMark 2003
3DMark 2006
ATI Tool

Using the tools:

1. CPUz provides in depth information about your processor, basic information about your memory settings and your motherboard.
2. StressPrime calculates prime numbers. The idea is to stress your RAM and CPU as much as possible. CPU is stressed by using the StressCPU option and RAM is stressed by using the Blend Test option. Run the Blend test overnight if you suspect a problem with your CPU/RAM configuration. CPU's rarely go bad, if anything you may need to bump up the CPU voltage in the BIOS a tad bit.
3. Memtest is an OS independent test for the memory. Tests #5 and #8 are the most stressful. Run memtest for about 4 hours. Errors in memtest indicate serious instability of your system. However, memtest stable need not equate to Windows stability.
4. 3DMark programs are benchmarking tools used by enthusiasts. However, they work great as a stability test tool. Run loops of 3DMark03 for about 2 hours. If your system locks up, it is probably unstable. 3DMark06 cannot be looped, but it is very stressful on video cards and the CPU.
5. ATI-Tool can be used with both NVidia and ATI video cards. Uae the "scan for artifacts" option to see if your video card is upto scratch or not. If you see artifacts, it means either you video card has poor cooling or your power supply is inadequet.

All the above stress-test programs ensure that maximum power is drawn by your system, so indirectly, it stresses your power supply as well.

Software tips and tricks:

1. It would save you a ton of headache to invest in drive cloning/backup software like Acronis. I kill my windows install almost once every three weeks (overclocking experiments) and this tool restores my drive/data to pristine form in about three minutes. Well worth the money.
2. Do not use the administrative account to surf the web, use the guest account. This is useful practice if you are the one prone to clicking any and every banner add under the sun, or if your kids use your computer.
3. Install spyware removal tools. Several free and excellent options such as Spybot S&D exsist. Use them.
4. Install an anti-virus. Macafee and Norton are junk. These two pieces of grabageware come bundled with bloated "Internet Security suites" which are nothing but an unnecessary headache. Apart from being resource hogs, they are not necessary if you use a bit of common sense when surfing the net (i.e. avoid p0rn sites). Use AVG-Antivirus instead. It is fast, free and effective. Norton corporate edition is far far better than the junk home edition, so that is another option.
5. Defragment your hard drive every month or so. Windows defragmenter is useless. I use Auslogic's Defragger
6. Use cr@p-Cleaner to get rid of the junk Windows accumulates over time.
7. I'd recommend leaving Windows on its very own HDD/partition. Install all your programs on another drive or partition.
8. Some people recommend turning off unused services in Start>Run>services.msc, but that will cause more problems unless you know what you are doing. You can however, minimize the number of startup programs by heading over to Start>Run>msconfig and unchecking stuff like yahoo messenger and msn messenger. Yahoo and MSN are resource hogs and basically bloatware.
9. Toggle DEP (Data execution prevention) for JO. This option is enabled only for the Windows kernel default, but it does not hurt to try it on JO. If you are encountering crashes, revert to the default settings. This can be found under Control Panel>Device manager>advanced.
10. Make sure you have the latest service pack SP 2a installed and operational. It is possible to super-tweak your Windows install by using nLite, which enables you to slipstream only specific updates with your Windows installation, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
11. Get and install the June 2007 DirectX redistributable. Several long standing issues are addressed.It is absolutely imperative that you create a system restore point prior to installing this.
12. A nice tool I often use is TweakXP. As with many of the tweaking software, some things work and some things are like snake oil.
13. Sometimes, if you have an SLI enabled motherboard and you switch the video card between SLI slots, the drivers complain. If they do that and you face problems because of that, reinstall your video card drivers instead of spending time troubleshooting.
14. Unless it is absolutely critical and you cannot, make system restore points and reinstall stuff when you can.

Uninstalling/Re-installing Video card or Chipset drivers:
A majority of software errors not related to malware is caused due to improper installation of Motherboard (chipset) drivers and/or Video card drivers. There is a very specific and elaborate way to do this.

1. Download the newest drivers.
2. Download Drivercleaner Pro 1.5 . Newer versions are not free, so grab this one asap.
3. Create a System Restore point.
4. Uninstall your drivers via Add/Remove programs.
5. Reboot.
6. Run Driver Cleaner and select the correct options (pm me if you have questions about this). Run it.
7. Reboot
8. Now install your new drivers.
9. Reboot if prompted. You are done!

Why this elaborate procedure?
Having old/obsolete parts of an earlier driver confuses Windows. Also, there is big garbage bin known as the Windows registry, which accumulates **** till you clean it up. Bloated registries are bad news and lead to severe problems like Blue screens, shutdown and startup issues and data loss.

The Power Supply

What constitutes a ****py PSU (or why no-name units are mostly garbage)?

• Quality of the Capacitors being used. Cheap caps imply shorter life span. Impact is more likely on voltage regulation. Cheap caps blow up when they get hot. All non-neo HE Antec units are plagued by this.
• Size of the Caps. Most complaints with regulation and ripple are due to undersized primary (input) or secondary caps (output).
• Insufficient cooling. This is a biggie. You would want to keep the unit cool for obvious reasons (i.e keep components within their working temps).
• Poor quality Voltage regulators. Although this issue is almost a non-issue these days, you still find the occasional burn out.
• Poor quality inductive elements i.e chokes and transformers. Imporoper winding or using smaller guage wires as the winding. Rare.
• Poor soldering. This is very very common.
• Bad circuit design. Really, there is not much you can do here, unless you are willing to do a complete rebuild.
• Poor PCB's being used as the logic board. This is not critical, but worth a mention.
• Under sized rectifier diodes. I don't understand why didoes are still being used instead of composite bridge rectifiers. Diodes also need to be cooled.

Points to note before you buy a PSU:
If you are a heavy gamer, the first thing that is likely to blow up is the power supply. So get a good one, a keeper and enjoy the respite from having to replace it often.

1. Watts mean squat. So the latest 650W bad-boy you purchased from Best Buy blew up just when you were piloting your entire unit over the enemy PSP. Well,it blew up not because your system sucks more than 650W, but because that unit is garbage. Moral of the story, don't go by Wattage on the label, go by who actually makes your unit.
2. All units sold by Best Buy are junk. I'd avoid them like the plague. They charge you a ridiculous amount of money for a nice finishing, sleeved cables and some fancy lights. The insides are garbage. They have a recent line of units called "Rocketfish" which look good, but are grossly over-specced. I'm willing to bet that their 700W unit would blow up when you draw say 450W.
3. An overclocked quad-core with 8800GTX SLI requires a beefy unit to run it. I'd go with a minimum 750W unit.
4. Figure out what you intend to power. This is very important if you are on a tight budget.
5. Do NOT skimp on quality. Poor PSU's would just hose your entire rig.
6. Look for a beefy single 12V rail (> 30 A) if you plan on running SLI or Cross-Fire
7. Try to identify the OEM of the unit. You cannot go wrong if you pick a good OEM.

Pocket-List of recommended PSU's (in order of what I consider to be the top-notch build quality)

1. 1. Zippy: Server grade, lasts for years and simply the best PSU money can buy. Their PSL series are loud, but their GSM series (I own one) are suited for home use. They are expensive though. Can be found on :http://store.myaopen.com/gsm6600p.html
   2. Etasis: Very very close to Zippy in terms of build quality but MUCH more affordable. Silverstone Zeus ST56ZF, 75ZF and 85ZF units. Buy them here: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=514533 (Just let Jennifer, the owner know that you were referred to by Super Nade of OCForums, i.e. me). The Zeus ST56ZF is a great buy for the price!
   3. PC-Power and Cooling Turbocool: Loud, VERY expensive but simply superb build quality. On par with Etasis and Zippy units.
   4. Ultra X-Pro series: New entrant to the PSU market. Built by Andyson, a server OEM. Affordable and well built.
   5. PCPower and Cooling Silencer series, Corsair HX series and Seasonic: Efficient, silent and very reliable. The corsair units in particular are modular and affordable. Excellent value for money. All are built by seasonic, the OEM.
   6. Enhance: These units are known for their 80+ efficiency and affordability. Good to have if you are on a tight budget. Higher wattage models (600+) seem to have problems with voltage regulation.

Avoid these cr@pola units like the Plague! [Copied over from OCForums]
Antec (All non neoHE models are full of bad capacitors)
Achieve
Aerocool (except the zero dBA series)
Allied
Apex
Arrow,
Aspire > Dangerous! They don't even pretend to meet the ATX/AMD/Intel specs!
Austin
Codegen
Coolmax
Demon
Deer
Duro
Dynapower
Eagle
EagleTech
Foxlink
Hercules
InWin (except FSP models)
JustPC
Key Mouse
Kingwin
L&C
Logic
Linkworld
Macron Power
MGE (not MEG, which is a solid server style unit)
Mustang
Okia
Power-Man (except FSP models)
Powmax
Power-Up
Powerstar
QMax
Qtec
q-tec
Raidmax (except Topower/Tagan models, not sold with cases)
Real PC Power
Rhycon
Robanton
Rosewill
Skyhawk
Soly Tech
TMP-ANS
Tsunami
Turbo
Turbolink
US-Can
Viomax


I'm a part of the forum staff on OCForums.com, your one-stop place for enthusiast hardware. I go by the id "Super Nade".

You can also reach me on the Joint Ops International Conflict forums under the same name -->[SA]11|Sfc.Gemüsemann

[Hellsent 2.0]

Wow good post mate, thanks for sharing :)

[Skaggy]

Very nice guide, checking a few of the things out now.

[ConscriptVirus]

adding this to my favorites