Stress test

I have no idea how to stress a computer. There are all kinds of stress tests. There are the ones designed to tell if the PC is going fail under normal use. Some tell you if you are ready to ship. Some tell you at what point your design burns down the building.

This morning, I was asked what I meant by mild to medium stress test.

Mild	Can the computer stand aggressive, but normal use.
Medium	How far can we go before the first failures, but no damage.
Hard	When do we cause damage.

Makes seance to me. The word stress tells me that we start at mild. Someone thought that I should not call it mild because that does not say "stress" to them. Whatever. The other IT types knew exactly what I was saying.

This all has to do with overclocking. It is amazing how hot a chip gets before it shuts down. I remember chips that shut down at 45C. Some of the ones we are using shut down at 87C or so. Crazy. That is enough to take skin off your finger I believe.

One of the issues we had with the overclocked machines was a bit odd. Adam heard a buzz coming out of the CPU somewhere. It sounded like a loose key jingling against metal. We called in the guy who put it together. We traced it down to the PCI cover in the back of the CPU. I must have bumped it while installing the video card. I didn't even notice it until Adam pointed it out. Good ear.

Some of the tools involved.

CPU-Z

Intel burn in

Prime95