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Cooking my PC: what NOT to do

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f0dder:
That's not a very good stress test, wreckedcarzz! You risk wasting a lot of CPU use by disk swapping (unless you have an insane amount of RAM), you risk games fighting for GPU resources and thus not maxxing out the GPU, and if you're disk swapping, CPU usage won't be maxxed either, since you'll be wasting time waiting for disk I/O.

It's better to stress the CPU by running something like prime95 (both small FFTs and in-place large FFTs, they stress in different ways), and afterwards try something really GPU intensive - I dunno which, but 3DMark has usually been pretty heavy on the GPUs I've had.

wreckedcarzz:
I run dedicated stress test programs now and again, but I feel it pushes the whole system harder the way I usually do it. It pushes the CPU, GPU, hard drive, RAM and PSU all hard, as well as Windows itself having to manage everything going on. I don't do it to measure a specific item, but moreover the system as a whole.

f0dder:
Well, if it floats your boat :P - I'd still say it's not the most effective way to really stress out your PC.

Carol Haynes:
There are lots of stress tests out there that do a good job of this.

SiSoft's Sandra is a benchmarking kit (there is a free version) which includes a soak test function that does things like max out memory IO, maxout the CPU, does GPU intensive tests and also floating point unit soak tests.

If you have an nVidia graphics card there is a soaktest built into the nVidia Control Panel.

You could also try http://www.majorgeeks.com/CliBench_mk_III_smp_d121.html which works from a floppy

ChalkTrauma:
I'd recommend burning a Ultimate Boot disk to have around to make sure things are running like they should:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

I always carry a up to date version with me to troubleshoot with..

I don't know what is more painful, sabotaging your own system, or having a factory tech do it for you and chasing your tail for weeks trying to figure out why your system just keeps winking out of existence for no good reason, until they send you a new power supply as a last resort, and when you pull out the old one you find this beauty hiding behind it:

oops!

Notice the finely crimped lead to an LED light array on the top of the box some tech cinched between the power supply and a sharp edge.. When the box got hot enough, the lead shorted and the system shut down, or as I found out, if you close the front panel hard enough.. Makes you want to run right out and buy one of these:

http://www.jinx.com/men/shirts/geek/computers_are_fun.html?catid=1#bigdesign

Just to make yourself believe it :D

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