How long should I burn in my cpu for?

[Atlantean]

I am thinking that I should run sisoft sandra as I built this computer yesterday. I was wondering how long I should run it for? Is 6 hours good? What about temperatures, what types of temps should I be seeing, I have an amd 2500+ but I stepped down the oc so that its at stock speeds cause I thought maybe I should burn in the processor first... so when I am playing games the temperature goes up to around 50 Celsius approximately I didn't check but after doing one run of sisoft it was at 47.5 so I figured that call of duty is more intense (maybe not). So how long should I run sisoft sandra for and what type of temperatures should I expect to see?

 

[John]

I burn in new rigs with Prime95 for at least 6 hours. As long as the cpu temp is <63C under full load you should be fine.

 

[Atlantean]

So prime95 is the program I should be using for burn in? And another question completely off the topic of the first, but when I am removing programs should I use the windows add/remove programs or should I use the one that is built into the program? Or is there something else I should use that I haven't heard of to completely wipe everything from the registry.

 

[Bovinicus]

I always advocate safe and slow overclocking. I like to start at stock speed, then raise the FSB a few MHz every couple of days. I don't burn in the CPU with a program; two days of normal usage should be sufficient for a "burn-in" time. Sometimes, when I start getting to what I think the limit of the overclock is I will use a program to test the stability of the system.

 

[mmnatas]

Side question:

Is Prime95 better than other distributed apps for burning in/testing stability of a newly overclocked box? Does it work more of the CPU than say, setiathome does? I know they both max out the processor's raw speed, but that doesn't mean they're both taxing the CPU in exactly the same way.

 

[thunderhorse]

I haven't burnt a rig in sense my 486-DX4-100. With the equipment of today if your going to have a failure it's usually right off. I do agree that if you are going to overclock, do it gradually. And I quit using a screen saver when I got a SVGA monitor. But I do turn my rig off if I'm not going to use it for long periods of time, like overnight. But you need to do what you think is right. It's called a learning curve. Best of luck and have fun.

 

[chocoruacal]

Burn is a myth. The sensible thing to do when you build a new rig is to run a battery of tests to test for stability. Prime95 for at least 12 hours to test cpu/ram. 3dMark or whatever for graphics.

 

[JBT]

The last CPU I got was 1700XP first boot up was perfect at 2.2Ghz since then it moved it up to ~MHz The only thing that slows me down is the ram. I don't think "burn in" really matters for chips that are down binned really such as 2500XP's and the Rev B 1700's or some of the Intel 800 FSB ones but I guess it can hurt. So if you feel uncomfortable jumping the speed up then use Prime 95 or Seti or something I personally like Prime 95 for stability testing.

 

[Atlantean]

Hmm... well I have run 3dmark 2003 several times and not had any problems there. I ran sisoft sandra through a couple runs.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Atlantean
Hmm... well I have run 3dmark 2003 several times and not had any problems there. I ran sisoft sandra through a couple runs.

That program isn't very demanding nor accurate. You should consider, Prime95, looping 3DMark, MemTest86 if you want stability tests.

 

[JBT]

3Dmark 2003 does NOT burn in a CPU that is like only vid card.... try 3Dmark01 is for the whole system but I really recommend Prime95, Pifast, or SETI.