# Fur Mark CPU Stress Test Issue



## BROWNC5 (Feb 4, 2018)

Hello Guys

Specs:
1080ti founders
AMD x1700 OC 3.8ghz Watercooled (temps always under 55c under 100% load)
32GB 3000Mhz hyperX ram
256GB SSD
2TB HDD
1000 Watt evga gold rated psu

I have always used prime95 to stress test my CPU and never had any problems with my OC, I used Furmarks CPU stress test today and it was causing my PC to hang for a couple of seconds randomly. I left the test running overnight to see if it would blue screen or lock up completely but it didn't....................What would you guys recommend to double check? Or could it be the furmark cpu stress test is just a load of crap? 

Also I have been running Prime95 as we speak and have no lock ups or issues.


Can anyone help me?!?



Thanks


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## R-T-B (Feb 4, 2018)

Toothless said:


> How about just using your machine instead of using shitty software.



He did ask if the software is shitty...

I would say furmark is.  Prime95 and general usage is my stresstest.


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## qubit (Feb 4, 2018)

Furmark is extremely stressful and was likely showing up some instability in your system. Especially with an FE card, it gets hotter than one with a decent aftermarket cooler, even with thermal and power throttling active. Hitches without crashing are possible on a system that's generating recoverable errors, which I suspect yours was doing.

Look, my Zotac GTX 1080 Amp! Extreme (3 slot cooler) takes Furmark in its stride and doesn't even blink, but I still don't run it for more than 5 minutes or so. That's because it's stressing out the power circuitry and other parts of the graphics card that you can't see, so it's best not to push it for too long or too often. This becomes increasingly true as a system gets older and the components are more worn out.

In short, I don't think Furmark is crappy as you seem to think, just extremely stressful, as this is exactly what it's designed to do.


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## BROWNC5 (Feb 4, 2018)

qubit said:


> Furmark is extremely stressful and was likely showing up some instability in your system. Especially with an FE card, it gets hotter than one with a decent aftermarket cooler, even with thermal and power throttling active. Hitches without crashing are possible on a system that's generating recoverable errors, which I suspect yours was doing.
> 
> Look, my Zotac GTX 1080 Amp! Extreme (3 slot cooler) takes Furmark in its stride and doesn't even blink, but I still don't run it for more than 5 minutes or so. That's because it's stressing out the power circuitry and other parts of the graphics card that you can't see, so it's best not to push it for too long or too often. This becomes increasingly true as a system gets older and the components are more worn out.
> 
> In short, I don't think Furmark is "shitty" as you seem to think, just extremely stressful, as this is exactly what it's designed to do.




Hiya bud. My GPU is perfectly ok as I don't overclock and heard furmark can kill GPUs so don't use it for that purpose. I used it for the CPU stress test dude. That was my concern.


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## qubit (Feb 4, 2018)

BROWNC5 said:


> Hiya bud. My GPU is perfectly ok as I don't overclock and heard furmark can kill GPUs so don't use it for that purpose. I used it for the CPU stress test dude. That was my concern.


Well, it will stress out the CPU, power circuitry too, so the same thing applies. I thought you made a typo when you wrote "cpu", but it does have that mode.


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## BROWNC5 (Feb 4, 2018)

qubit said:


> Well, it will stress out the CPU, power circuitry too, so the same thing applies. I thought you made a typo when you wrote "cpu", but it does have that mode.




Thank you!


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## StefanM (Feb 4, 2018)

BROWNC5 said:


> AMD x1700 OC 3.8ghz...
> What would you guys recommend to double check? Or could it be the furmark cpu stress test is just a load of crap?



Since the test is date stamped November 2013 i would ask the author to re-check the tool with a Ryzen CPU.
There have been a lot of changes in the microarchitecture, e.g. "down core control" that might confuse an old application.

EDIT:

Forward these documents to him:

Open-Source Register Reference for AMD Family 17h Processors (PUB)
Processor Programming Reference (PPR) for AMD Family 17h Models 00h-0Fh Processors (PUB)
Software Optimization Guide for AMD Family 17h Processors (PUB)


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## newtekie1 (Feb 4, 2018)

BROWNC5 said:


> Fair point but I've had OC go bad before, even after stress testing for 12 hours. Hence my concerns.



Furmark's CPU Burner is not a stability test.  It is designed to just load the CPU as much as possible to generate as much heat.  That is why it is called a burner and not a stability test.  It, AFAIK, has no error detection like a proper stability test.

This is also why you are seeing odd behavior.  The pauses aren't because your CPU is unstable, it is because your CPU is loaded to the point it can't handle doing anything else and gets backed up.

It definitely is a good thing to test CPU overclocks with a few different programs, IMO.  Because while a CPU might be stable in one program, it might actually be unstable in another.  I've seen this several times.   Just the fact different programs use different instructions sets can reveal instability in the CPU.  For example, old versions of Prime95(always make sure you have the latest) didn't use the AVX instructions.  However, Intel Burn Test did use AVX, so Intel Burn Test would often find instability when Prime95 would not.  This is because using the AVX instructions not only generate more heat, but they also put more stress on the CPU and tend to reveal instability more.  This is actually why a lot of modern motherboards have an AVX offset setting now, that automatically lowers the CPU OC Speed a few notches when AVX workloads are detected.

If you want to test your CPU overclock with a few other stability tests I recommend the following:

Aida64 - You can just use the Extreme Trial Version, not the free edition.  Under the Tools there is a System Stability test.  I run the CPU, FPU, and Cache stress test for at least 12 hours before I consider the CPU Stable.  The memory stress test is good too if you are overclocking your memory.

x264 Stability Test - It is best to run this test from a HDD you have in the system if possible, not a SSD, because it does write a lot to the disk.  For a quick test I like to use a 5 loop run.  But for my final stability test I set it to infinity and then let it run for at least 12 hours.  Of course, quick is a relative term depending on your CPU.  Because this program is actually doing video encodes, the amount of time it takes to complete a loop greatly depends on your CPU.  So for dual-cores I tend to use 2 or 3 loops as a quick test instead of 5.

OCCT - This one has two CPU stability tests in it.  One they developed(though I think it is pretty much Prime95 based) and a Linpack stress test.  Again, I run both for 12 hours each.

IntelBurnTest - This is another Linpack stress test like the one in OCCT, so I don't really even use this anymore.  I just use the one in OCCT.  But it isn't a bad one to have if you want to use it.

I really only stability test with Aida64, x264 Stability Test, and OCCT anymore.  IMO, that gives a very good coverage on CPU use cases.  I don't use Prime95 anymore because the OCCT stress test seems to be extremely similar to it, so it would just be a redundant test.  The same goes for IntelBurnTest, the Linpack test in OCCT does basically the same testing so I don't bother running both.  Yes, I do run each test for 12 hours after I finalize my overclock, for a total of 2 days(more like 2 and a half actual due to gaps between running tests), but that is what I like to do to give me the best chance of a long lasting stable overclock.  I don't like to mess around with finding out my overclock isn't actually stable a few months down the road when I decide I want to do something different that just gaming like encode video.  So I just cover all the bases when I set up the overclock so I worry less.  I know this much stability testing is not for everyone, and some will say any amount of stability testing is a waste and you should just play games and hope they don't crash, but that isn't what I like to do.


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## BROWNC5 (Feb 4, 2018)

newtekie1 said:


> Furmark's CPU Burner is not a stability test.  It is designed to just load the CPU as much as possible to generate as much heat.  That is why it is called a burner and not a stability test.  It, AFAIK, has no error detection like a proper stability test.
> 
> This is also why you are seeing odd behavior.  The pauses aren't because your CPU is unstable, it is because your CPU is loaded to the point it can't handle doing anything else and gets backed up.
> 
> ...




Thank you so much dude!


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## trog100 (Feb 4, 2018)

i am beginning to despair of TPU as a place to ask for help.. for every yay there is a nay.. 

there is nothing wrong with the furmark cpu burner.. if a machine wont run it.. its not stable.. the problem is the machine not the software..

actually the real  problem is the owner not wanting to accept what the software is telling him.. he he

trog


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## Vya Domus (Feb 4, 2018)

trog100 said:


> there is nothing wrong with the furmark cpu burner.. if a machine wont run it.. its not stable.. the problem is the machine not the software..



The problem is with the user , more precisely what he thinks stable means. Matter of the fact is most people waste their time running ridiculously intensive synthetic tests for hours on end that are no where near real world scenarios.

It's a very good thing that we are pointing that out right away instead of falling directly into the endless pit that stress testing is.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 4, 2018)

Ok stress tests sometimes fill the machines memory up, so it relegates to swap space, when cpu is at 100% with memory use at 100% it will freeze here and there, just like a system with 1gb of ram running windows 7... the system is still working though. Its normal for a stress test such as furmark to do this.

If you want to know anything run occt or Ryzen Blender.

If you are not locking up/ bsod during youtube, gaming, webbrowsing, file extraction/compression, office work or folding/crunching you are fine.

Be a computer user not a number watcher


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## BROWNC5 (Feb 4, 2018)

eidairaman1 said:


> Ok stress tests sometimes fill the machines memory up, so it relegates to swap space, when cpu is at 100% with memory use at 100% it will freeze here and there, just like a system with 1gb of ram running windows 7... the system is still working though. Its normal for a stress test such as furmark to do this.
> 
> If you want to know anything run occt or Ryzen Blender.
> 
> ...



Very true. But I only do this every 6 months it's not a regular thing. Maybe I'm overly worried about a issue when there isn't one. thank you for the advice dude.


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## R-T-B (Feb 4, 2018)

trog100 said:


> i am beginning to despair of TPU as a place to ask for help.. for every yay there is a nay..
> 
> there is nothing wrong with the furmark cpu burner.. if a machine wont run it.. its not stable.. the problem is the machine not the software..
> 
> ...



Trog, the software isn't telling him anything.  It's bogging down his rig without crashing, as it should.

As for the rudeness, or unintended rudeness, what have you, bottom line is we could have started off better.

Let's try again, shall we?  Welcome to TPU!


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## trog100 (Feb 4, 2018)

mr frog.. i use the furnark cpu burner as a general load stability tester.. i run it in the background whilst browsing for a few hours .. if it dosnt do anything untowards i assume my machine is stable enough for me..

i dont feel its your job to pass judgment on what i say in an overly moralistic way.. so please stop doing it.. 

thank you

trog


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## sneekypeet (Feb 4, 2018)

OK this is to all parties in this thread. Major cleanup has been done. We either discuss the stability and what to use to find it from now on or don't post at all. Any more personal comments back and forth will be awarded with points (and not the good kind).


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## R-T-B (Feb 4, 2018)

trog100 said:


> i dont feel its your job to pass judgment on what i say in an overly moralistic way..



That was never my intent.  Please accept my apologies.

If you would like to point out other areas you feel I have done this in a PM, I would be happy to address them as well.  For now just know I will never judge you in any sort of "moralistic" way.  I feel that is your job.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 5, 2018)

BROWNC5 said:


> Very true. But I only do this every 6 months it's not a regular thing. Maybe I'm overly worried about a issue when there isn't one. thank you for the advice dude.



Yes you are over worrying about it, just enjoy your rig, if you start having issues just ask a question in a new thread and we will try to help if you can't figure it out on your own.


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