My experience with Prime95 on Haswell

[FunkyFeatures]

Hello

 

I am not sure if you can call this a review, if it does not count, please by all means move this to the proper subforum

About 2 months ago, I built a badass system(IMO) including the I7 4790k. I got it up to 4.5ghz at 1.175vcore, called it a day after a couple of hours of AIDA64.

A month later, I saw that the BSODs might actually be my cpu overclock, and my AIDA trial ran out.

 

Had to use Prime95, and what does everybody say? HECK NO! What do I say? Why didn't I do this in the first place?

I had it on manual voltage, always had because adaptive wouldn't work. 3ish minutes in, bsod. 44x multiplier, couple of hours? Same temps as AIDA64, yet no BSODs, and my system has been rock solid ever since.

I seriosly think Prime95 has a bad reputation, but after this experience, I would never trust AIDA again. I cannot believe that I had trusted AIDA, and not Prime95. Anyways, stable now, and would just like to tell people, that (at least for me) AIDA is not always right when it comes to BSOD, and you should try Prime95 with manual voltages. 

 

It may be an incredibly unpopular opinion, but I trust Prime95 over AIDA now.

[79wjd]

Prime puts more stress on the system than Aida, but it's more less reasonable stress, which is why makes Aida64 the better stress tester since it puts a realistic max load on the cpu. 

[Enderman]

It was unstable with aida 64 because you had it at 4.5GHz

When you turned it down to 4.4 then it was stable.

 

This has nothing to do with which stress testing program you used.

[FunkyFeatures]

Prime puts more stress on the system than Aida, but it's more less reasonable stress, which is why makes Aida64 the better stress tester since it puts a realistic max load on the cpu. 

That may be right, but if AIDA won't find the occasional BSOD problems, then what is it good for? Running games, BSOD. Aida - nothing, Prime - BSOD.

 

AIDA might be more realistic, but then my games aren't(like games have ever been realistic duuuh)

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

The reason most people say not to use Prime95 is because the majority of people have voltage set to adaptive. Both Aida and Prime are good, but for most Haswell users Aida is the safer option. 

 

Aida shouldn't have anything to do with a BSOD, it would be the OC. Really you should get it to pass both benchmarks without BSOD to ensure complete stability. 

[FunkyFeatures]

It was unstable with aida 64 because you had it at 4.5GHz

When you turned it down to 4.4 then it was stable.

 

This has nothing to do with which stress testing program you used.

I might have been confusing, It was rocksolid stable on AIDA with 4.5ghz, but 4.5GHZ was unstable in Prime95 and every now and then in gaming.

[79wjd]

I might have been confusing, It was rocksolid stable on AIDA with 4.5ghz, but 4.5GHZ was unstable in Prime95 and every now and then in gaming.

Well, how long were you running Aida for? "A couple hours" isn't enough to prove stability; you really need to run a stress test for 12-24 hours to ensure complete stability. 

[Enderman]

I might have been confusing, It was rocksolid stable on AIDA with 4.5ghz, but 4.5GHZ was unstable in Prime95 and every now and then in gaming.

And that's because you're not following the proper overclocking guidelines.

 

It seems like 4.5GHz was the highest you got it stable on aida and then you left it there. That's not what youre supposed to do. When you find the maximum clock that your CPU will reach, you either increase the voltage by a few hundredths of a volt, or you downclock the CPU by 100-200MHz

 

You should not leave a CPU at the verge of instability unless you do a thorough stress test. This includes multiple stress test programs, benchmarks, benchmarking GPU at the same time, ram at the same time, and many other things for long periods of time (12+ hours)

[Trophywolfe]

i used prime 95 and the thermals jst kept creeping u to over 100c and i get idle of 30c

[FunkyFeatures]

Well, how long were you running Aida for? "A couple hours" isn't enough to prove stability; you really need to run a stress test for 12-24 hours to ensure complete stability. 

In my brain I included it, apparently not when I wrote it. I was supposed to say 5 hours.

[79wjd]

In my brain I included it, apparently not when I wrote it. I was supposed to say 5 hours.

5 hours isn't long enough. I've had Prime proc a BSOD after 12 hours. 

[FunkyFeatures]

And that's because you're not following the proper overclocking guidelines.

 

It seems like 4.5GHz was the highest you got it stable on aida and then you left it there. That's not what youre supposed to do. When you find the maximum clock that your CPU will reach, you either increase the voltage by a few hundredths of a volt, or you downclock the CPU by 100-200MHz

 

You should not leave a CPU at the verge of instability unless you do a thorough stress test. This includes multiple stress test programs, benchmarks, benchmarking GPU at the same time, ram at the same time, and many other things for long periods of time (12+ hours)

Did not seem to find that when I found an overclocking guide, will keep that in mind next time - the highest I got was 4.6 at 1.175vcore, decided to back off to 4.5 and run the stress test.

[FunkyFeatures]

i used prime 95 and the thermals jst kept creeping u to over 100c and i get idle of 30c

Manual or adaptive voltage?

 

5 hours isn't long enough. I've had Prime proc a BSOD after 12 hours. 

I know now then. Thanks for letting me know though.

 

 

 

 

But the point of this post was - Prime95(for me) was much more effective at making the machine BSOD possibly saving people time doing dirty overclocks like I did.

[Trophywolfe]

Manual or adaptive voltage?

 

I know now then. Thanks for letting me know though.

 

 

 

 

But the point of this post was - Prime95(for me) was much more effective at making the machine BSOD possibly saving people time doing dirty overclocks like I did.

manual had it set to 1.149v

[Trophywolfe]

had it running for 30 min

[FunkyFeatures]

manual had it set to 1.149v

 

had it running for 30 min

Did you monitor volts to see if Prime95 actually caused the voltage to go bananas?

[Trophywolfe]

Did you monitor volts to see if Prime95 actually caused the voltage to go bananas?

lol it was manual it was static at 1.149v

[FunkyFeatures]

lol it was manual it was static at 1.149v

Sounds more like a cooler issue than prime95 doing funky stuff do your pc.

[Faceman]

Yea, Prime95 has a bad reputation because a lot of people don't realize that you have to set the voltage to manual before stress testing, this is the case with any stress test, but especially P95 because it is so strenuous.  When I test with P95, if I am stable in P95 after just 20 minutes, I am rock hard stable.

 

People who use P95 with Haswell/DC that don't set their voltage to manual/static/constant/override before stress testing are going to run into overvolting and overheating problems.  Just be a pro, and use manual voltage when stress testing.