Prime Stable?

[Acebmxer]

I am going through my O.C. profiles and what not to see what I can push with this new HSF and I was running Prime Blend test and it ran for 21 hrs and 21 min before I stopped it with out errors. I noticed Core 0 says Completed 848 tests in 21 hrs 21 min core 1 completed 846 tests core 2 completed 833 and core 3 completed 851 tests.

So my question is I stable just 0 errors in x amount of time or all cores complete same number of test with 0 error in x amount of time?

I can post my full bios settings if needed but which setting has a bigger impact on getting each core to run the same amount of test, Cpu/Mch ref's?



That test was at 9x485 max core temps were 84c 84c 81c 81c and cpu temp reached 97c

[Chike]

Re: Prime Stable?

To me it seems that there's a problem with CPU temp reading for the Q9x50, it can't be more than core temps.
Prime95 runs in lowest priority as default, it can be changed but it's not recommended. If you have a screen saver or other programs that run in the background they will have higher priority for CPU time by the system. I would not be worried about the number of tests each worker done.

Those temps are very high for Prime95, if you are using video encoding software it may produce even higher temps, not the same but close to what you would get with IBT.

[Acebmxer]

Re: Prime Stable?

To me it seems that there's a problem with CPU temp reading for the Q9x50, it can't be more than core temps.

Thats what I am beginning to think also and is a reason why i bought this cooler as I thought something was borked in my water setup.

Those temps are very high for Prime95, if you are using video encoding software it may produce even higher temps, not the same but close to what you would get with IBT.

I just ran a 123 min blue ray rip h264 .mp4 movie through ConvertXtoDVD and 20 min later all done and max core temps were 60 52 62 62. That was at Highest priority in the programs settings. But it uses 38-50% cpu usage and not evenly across the cores. More like 10% 10% 25% 10% per core usage.

I need to find a program that will use all the horse power that this cpu has to offer that will use atleast 75% cpu usage or better. Encode a move in 3 min on cpu would be great

[Sunburn74]

Re: Prime Stable?

You are 100 percent stable. Be happy and don't worry about it.

Prime95 uses all 4 cpu cores. However, so does your OS, all your background tasks, etc. It's not like prime 95 runs in a MS DOS bubble. What's happening is the task of keeping windows up and keeping all your background programs up is being offloaded to at least one core at a time, depending on how heavily threaded those background services and tasks are. In short, it means that prime95 will never give each cpu the exact same amount of test over 24 hours. Whilst one cpu may be able to dedicate 100 percent of its time and power to prime95, another cpu may only be able to dedicate 98% of its time and power to p95 and the remaining 2% goes towards keeping that IE window you just opened running or keeping windows time going and etc.

As long as you can actually complete a long prime95 run, thats what really matters. The slight differences in the actual number of tests completed doesn't matter unless if its a gross difference (ie one cpu only completed 30% of the tests another cpu managed to finish), but I've never ever heard of that happening. I guess that could happen if you decided to encode something that was only single threaded or dual threaded the entire time prime95 was running.

Hope that helps.

By the way, your temps are very very high. After about 30 mins of prime95, your temps should more or less stabilize meaning a 30min prime run should be able to tell you what temps you'd get after a 24hr prime run. That being said you should know that with my oced q9550 at 4ghz, I get to about 65 degrees after a 12hr prime run. Your temps actually risk cpu damage. You should post your bios settings because I suspect your cpu vcore is insanely high, that your heatsink compound is cheap and poorly applied, and that your case is poorly ventilated (if this was an i7 920, i'd think alittle different, but its a core2!!! geez). There's a simple rule overclockers should follow or at least try to follow: for any given voltage, you should never exceed a 15% increase of the stock voltage setting. Meaning if the stock voltage setting was 1.00V for say MCH ref, you should try to keep all voltage increases under 1.15V. its a crude rule, and sometimes you should break it but in generally its a very good rule to follow as most OCs that have been voltage minimized and finalized tend to be in that range in all regards.

I realize that your blu ray rip only gives temps in the 60s, but thats only at 30percent load. If you try to play a video game or even simply load windows where cpu load can hit 90% throughput, it could be disastrous. WHen people say try to keep it under 60 degrees, they mean if all cores are 100 percent loaded throughput, the temp is under 60 degrees.

[Salty]

Re: Prime Stable?

Are you stable? Good question, and there will always be someone who tests for longer.
I've had profiles test stable with 30 and 37hrs of prime, in use for a week, start bluescreening, so nothing is totally guaranteed. Sounds promising though.

My E8500 cores are 6 degrees C hotter than cpu temp. I get 68C cores in Prime blend, and about 62 cpu. LinX can push cores to 79C and cpu to 73. LinX hit 83 before new thermal compound and washer mod. Thermal compound performance improved 2-3 degrees with curing over about 3 weeks.

Normal for tests to run out of sync. I have noticed that sometimes it even runs different numbers of iterations per core within a test. Doesn't matter.

Could you say what sort of temps you get with the aquagate? (curious)

[profJim]

Re: Prime Stable?

Verify that your new heatsink is properly seated.
Excessively high temperatures are often due to incorrect heatsink installation and/or TIM application.
Was there a clear plastic protective cover on the base of your new heatsink?
If yes, did you remove this cover?