burn in

[mickeddie]

What excatly is burn in? How important is it? I remember many years ago when I had a Comp USA system the installer left a burn in program on the machine and I ran it just to see what it did but have no idea what it does. I did some googling and read that it runs for 24-72 hrs to check your new system for potential problems. So my question is this: If I have to download the burn-in program my new system will be running for several minutes BEFORE I start the burn-in. Is this ok, or should I download it first onto my current hard drive?

Thanks!!

 

[JonathanDeane]

Basicaly it was just to stress test parts and see if anything will go "poof" usualy if something is gonna blow on a computer it will do so in the first 24 hours

 

[nobly]

I thought burn-in was just either leaving the computer on for a full 24hrs. Some might run some program on it, but I'm not sure what the OEM's do these days.

JonathanDeane is right though, if you have a bad part, you're probably going to find out within the 1st few days of running.

 

[sojrner]

nah, just leaving it on is not enough, you want to really "hammer" the system at different points. Even w/o a "burn-in" app you can simply run a memory benchmark or even better fire up UT2004 in a bot-match so that it is hitting pretty much everything. The way UT runs, it will go indefinitely until you shut it down but it will be hitting hard drive, cpu, ram, video, sound... the whole system as it loads up each new map and "plays" through each round.

24 hours is not a hard-and-fast rule, nor is it needed to be consecutive. You can run the game (as an example) while you are @ work and then use the comp until you go to bed and fire it up again to let it run while you sleep. (and be comforted that your new beast is not getting the same rest at all )

Basically, you just need to slam that system to ferrett out any issues so that they are found before any warranty is up.

 

[nobly]

Hehe yeah I guess I need to update my definition... Its about 7 years old.
UT sounds like a good thing to run for a burn in. Games are the most stressful on all of the system parts anyways.

 

[sojrner]

exactly... any game that can run a bot-match style that does not need you to overwatch is great, UT is just what I use.