BigNasty

I ran OCCT for 30 minutes without problems, and prime95 last night for about 2 hours without any problems.. Does that mean that my RAM and CPU are ok? I'm asking because I can't install anything from DVD, amd getting lots of .dll errors, and my system seems to be running quite slow.

txtmstrjoe

A personal rule I live by: The longer you subject your system to a stress test (and not have it fail), the closer you are to ideal stability.

In my opinion, your testing periods are far too short to establish whether or not your hardware setup is actually stable. OCCT's default test is a Blend (i.e., CPU + RAM) test and lasts for an hour; its program author has claimed it is equivalent to a 24hr Orthos/Prime95 run. While I cannot vouch for this claim's accuracy, I do know that OCCT is inherently harder on my systems than Orthos/Prime95's Blend test on default settings (i.e., Priority Setting 1) ever is.

I am in the very tiny minority on OCN who advocates as strict a stress test regiment as possible, so I'm fairly sure this advice will be likely ignored. But if you care about your rig's stability, I would run Orthos/Prime95 Blend for at least 12hrs on Priority Setting 8 at the very least. Any failure during this time period means the rig is unstable.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

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Aawa

could it be the OS disk itself that is fubarred? or even the harddrive itself?

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Ricerocket

blitz6804

I too am of that minority. (S&M FTW?)

You are having problems at stock from the look of it. This is a fresh Windows install? Is it possible the install partially faulted? Have you run Vista Memory test by chance? A better tester would be Memtest86+. You can download a freeware bootable ISO of it. Either will tell you if you possess questionable memory.

Also, by chance, do you have the correct divider chosen? You have DDR2 800 RAM, you have the DDR2 800 divider chosen yes?

EDIT: Silly question; that was the booze talking. Obviously the RAM is set to DDR2 800. I really would try Memtest86+.

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