[smoothjk]

I have a PNY 9600GT (stock: 650/1625/900(1800)) clocked to 720/1800/980. I tested it for about 30 minutes with some Japanese guy's program, can't remember the name...but it's basically a bunch of spheres floating around.

Anyway, I've played Bioshock, Oblivion, and a couple of weak games (Blizzard games), and things run great. In fact, I can notice the extra speed and smoothness.

However, last night, I was playing CS: Source, and after about 30 minutes of playing, I got a weird long pause, and all the textures turned weird, and eventually my comp crashed.

I can't imagine that CS: Source would be that demanding, but now I'm questioning my OC stability. What do you recommend I do to make sure it's stable, and maybe that one game is just glitchy? Should I run that sphere program for a few hours instead of just 30 minutes?

I don't think it's GPU temps...it idles at around 42C and under heavy load, reaches about 60C.

 

[timw4mail]

That sounds more like a CPU instability to me, have you stress tested your CPU?

 

[smoothjk]

I've done Orthos stability testing, and it failed about 4 hours. But I figured it was OK because nothing stresses my CPU as much as Orthos does...and I rarely use my computer for more than 4 hours in one sitting. But maybe you're right and it's a CPU problem...but why would CS: Source have problems and not a CPU-heavy game like Oblivion?

Also, my other question remains...what's the best way to test GPU stability?

 

[Dobbie]

If orthos fails than you will most likely run into problems along the way even you don't use anything that stresses the CPU like that.

 

[VincentJ]

Try furmark. I would get you a link, but I'm on my blackberry.

FurMark

 

[P1MP1NJ]

I use prime95

 

[rduffy123]

that doesnt stress a video card?

 

[Dobbie]

3DMark does yes

 

[grossebeaver]

Furmark does a pretty good job, and also lets you monitor the fps/temps while checking for artifacts.

 

[Dobbie]

How does it let you monitor temps?

 

[grossebeaver]

Furmark != Futuremark

Temps are displayed on the screen along with the FPS, time, fan speed and frames (for the stability test). You also have the option to set multiple resolutions and MSAA samples too. Usually it takes 8-10 min for the temps to stabilize.