Prime95 stress testing

[qwoz]

hey guys, I just got my build together the other day and I am currently running a stress test on my q9400 core 2 quad. I was just wondering how long I need to run Prime 95 in order to reach the CPU's max temp under full load. Right now it has been running for 10 min full load at only 40 degrees c (wow thats pretty low right?). its probably so low because I haven't done an OC yet. \

Just to verify, the highest I should let my CPU get under full load is about 70c?

 

[B-Unit]

Generally, your CPU will hit its max temp within 15-20min of stress testing with Prime95. Once you start to OC, you will want to let it go 24+ hours to verify stability.

 

[qwoz]

ok thanks. and a stable system will show no errors when tested for 24+ hours?

 

[jedimasterben]

Yes, that is correct. You can usually get a grand idea of stability after only 10 minutes, and in a lot of cases, any more than an hour is overkill, but it's always good to be thorough!

 

[B-Unit]

Correct, as a bare minimum, you want 12 hours, I seen lots of failures after 2-4 hours.\

EDIT: Realized this could be a bit confusing. 10-15 mins is long enuf while your OCing, you only need to run the long test to verify stability for your final OC.

 

[loneninja]

You'll want to run it at least a few hours when your done overclocking, for the longest time I thought my X2 5000 was stable at 3.2 and the rare program crash was Vista, well it turned out that my overclock wasn't 100% stable and consistently failed prime95 a few hours into the test.