Well, I'm very new to the whole concept of "building your own computer". So i have no idea where to download tests to assess the system.

Can someone please tell me how to get

1) something called "prime95" what is it, and where do i get it?

2) something to measure the cpu heat. I've heard of speedfan. Is this good?

3) something to test the cpu at "full load" (what does this do?)

4) something called "3dmarks06". what is the purpose of that?

5) any other tests that I need to run =D

After I build my system, what should I do to make sure everything is running nicely?

Thanks for the answers everyone!!!

Also, I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section, I just thought that since overclockers probably test their system a lot, they would know.

google

ok.....but some of the sites have malware in their download, right?
=0

http://www.majorgeeks.com/
great website for all the tools you'll need.
1-Prime95 is a stress program designed to detect any instability within your CPU. I recommend OCCT over Prime95 as a stress program. OCCT has temperature monitoring, graphs are created after a stress session for temperature, and voltage. And seems to detect instability allot more reliably then Prime95
2-OCCT, Speedfan, HWMonitor all have temperature monitoring.
3-Same as question 1.
4-3DMark (whether it be 3DMark 03/05/06/vantage/etc..) is a benchmarking program. It's good for detecting instability within your gpu, gives you a chance to look for artifacts (visual anomalies), as well as give you a final score to determine how fast your computer is relative to other PCs. However, the score is not accurate in the sence you can use it to measure performance in a literal fashion. Example, if you score 10'000 points in 3DMark06, and someone else scores 12'000 points, they don't necessarily have a machine that is 20% faster then yours. It may even be slower in some situations, so use caution when viewing these numbers.
5-If you are not overclocking, just run Prime95 for 8hours or OCCT for 2hours to test the system's stability. If you are overclocking... google. There are allot of good overclocking guides out there for many different motherboards, cpus, ram, etc...

thanks!!!

OCCT is "OverClock Checking Tool", so will it still work well if I use it without overclocking?
Prime95 is also an overclock stress tool

Yes, OCCT works well overclocking or not. It's, in my experience a more stressful tool then Prime95, so doesn't need to be run as long to find any instability within your machine.

ok, at the end of 2 hours of prime95, the temps of a g0 2.4 q6600 was

cpu : 32 C
core 0: 56 C
core 1: 56 C
core 2: 50 C
core 4: 54 C

give or take a few degrees increase for a few seconds

with no failures.

how do these temps look? about 24C ambient temp

im stopping at 2 hours since I didnt overclock my cpu at all, and I dont want to waste cpu life

Don't worry about wasting cpu life, at stock speeds, you could leave your system on 24/7 and have it last for 5years+.

Temp wise, it looks fine for a little OCing. 65C is regarded as the highest safe temp on any CPU for core temps. If you don't know how to OC, read the guides here, they will help you tons.

those temp is perfectly fine for your setting.keep working on it.

yes but those temps were without oc'ing at all.
should I be worried? I even have a zalman cooler