Last Update:2006 Apr 05 13:00 EDT
Copyright © 2004-2006 JohnnyLee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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Stress Prime 2004 is a better, I hope, GUI interface to Prime95'sTorture Test. Thanks go to the Prime95 people for providing the Prime95 sourcecode (version 24.14).
I assembled a computer recently and ran a few apps to test thestability of the new system. One of the stress apps recommended by various overclocking guides and forums is Prime95. Prime95 features a torture test to stress the CPU andRAM.
My typical usage of Prime95 was:
- Start the torturetest in blend mode.
- Watch the test for a few minutes. If no errors occurred within afew minutes...
- I turned off the monitor and walked away to do some otherstuff.
- Every few hours, I'd return to the computer and check on thestatus of the test.
Prime95 seemed to do a good job of stress-testingthe CPU and RAM, however Prime95's feedback during the stress testwas lacking.
I encountered the following problems with Prime95:
- No easily-visible test status. It is hard to determine the current status of the stress test at aglance. The user has to scan the log text to determine if there is anerror or notice if the Prime95 icon is red or yellow.
- No time-related test status. There's no display of when the test started, and during thetest, there's no display of how long the test has run.
- Read-only log window. The user can't copy the logged text from the main Prime95 window.
I could have modified the logged text in Prime95 to improve the first twoproblems within the Prime95 codebase. But if I could go beyonda text-only solution, I could have greater improvements.
So I created a WTL dialog app named SP2004.exe which fixes theabove problems.
SP2004 uses a redesigned userinterface that calls Version 23 Prime95's torture test code. Thisshould provide the same results as Prime95, just displayed in a different manner.
SP2004 provides:
- Easily-visible test status. SP2004displays the current status of the app in a large font on anappropriate background colour. When an error occurs during the test,SP2004 will also:
- flash the dialog window
- play asound named fail.wav or a beep if a WAV file of that name doesn't exist
- flashthe scroll lock key LED
- change the app icon from a 'dormantvolcano on a sunny day' to an 'erupting volcano on an overcastday'
- SP2004's tray icon displays a tooltip window that shows the current test status
- Time-related test status. SP2004displays the test start time and how much time haselapsed.
- Log window text that can be copied.
SP2004 was tested on Windows 2000 SP4. SP2004 was compiled withVC6 SP5 with the Processor Pack. SP2004 should work on Windows 2000,Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.
SP2004.EXE v0.40 CAB - 2006 Apr 05 [Win32.EXE - 3.68MB, CAB - 238KB]
I expect that there may be many changes or requests for changes.The source code for the SP2004 user interfacewill be released once the codebase has stabilized.
0.40
- Apr 05 2006 - v0.40 released - Wow. Has it really been over a year since the last release?
- switch to Prime95 24.14 numeric routines
- fix bug when restoring from minimized/tray icon state
- during stress/torture test, change text selection to show progress
- restore CPU Affinity setting on startup, save CPU Affinity and Priority on exit
- miscellaneous tweaks to layout and dialog text
- show when page faults occur during stress test, N.B. if using MBM5 in Blend or Custom Test, paging may occur often
- show number of rounds in dialog
- warn if system CPU affinity mask different from process CPU affinitymask
- Mar 30 2005 - v0.30 released - bug report and testing from Bryan Kiilerich Levinsky - SP2004now works on CPUs with Data Execution Prevention (DEP)/NX-bit/XD-bit enabled
- move Prime95 assembly code into code segment
- Mar 04 2005 - v0.29 released - bug report from David Lea - SP2004now works with PE Builder
- fix crash in Prime95 code when no pagefile exists
- avoid crash in MBM5 code when running SP2004 from read-only media
- make SP2004 work from read-only media - Prime95 code stillrequires writeable media though. For PE Builder, this usually meansadding a RAM disk or pointing TEMP to a hard disk.
- fix dialogs' appearance in WinXP
- Feb 01 2005 - v0.28 released - bug report from Sung Hoon Jung
- fix window pos after exit when minimized
- on failure, use PC speaker if fail.wav file doesn't exist
- Jan 26 2005 - v0.27 released - some suggestions from Douglas Torzewski
- show CPU speed info in dialog
- save log to file - default file is splog.txt in currentdirectory
- add Resume button to support resuming torture test from where thefailure occurred. If you don't change any CPU/RAM parameters,this may not help.
- add support for custom FFT order and lengths in Custom Test dialog
- minor UI fixes - tray icon, up/down arrows in dlgs, descriptivetext
- June 30 2004 - v0.26 released
- raise max limit of log edit ctrl from 32K
- use GotoDlgCtrl instead of SetFocus to put focus on specific dlg control
- check test duration time to ensure that no skew happens for MBM info display
- close thread handle when torture test ends
- calculate negativeve voltages correctly, decimal portion can't be negative
- append text to end of log, even when amount of text > 64KB or selection is changed by user
- June 22 2004 - v0.25 - suggestions from http://forums.pcper.comand Sung Hoon Jung
- show MBM sensor information (temps, fans, volts) in log,add dialog to allow user config of sensor display in log. Tested withMBM v.5.3.6.0. MBM must be configured correctly before using thisfeature.
- fix resizing of main window wrt Tray Icon checkbox.
- rework FSB/multiplier calculations so only multipliers of .0 or .5show up.
- disabled Priority combobox when testing starts.
- for duration time string, show only minutesportion when number of seconds is zero.
- reorder code to reduce perceived lag between Start button clickand actual test start
- June 08 2004 - v0.24 - suggestions from http://forums.pcper.com
- add Priority combobox and text label. You shouldn't need toadjust the priority unless there are other apps using large amounts ofCPU time. SP2004.exe should be the only program running.
- show in log the current CPU and FSB speeds as reported by WMI.
- June 06 2004 - v0.23 - bugfix and code sync
- update tov.23.8.1 Prime95 codebase.
- fix comparisons in CPU detection code and treat Athlon 64 andOpteron as same class as Intel P4.
- June 01 2004 - v0.22 - suggestions from Sung Hoon Jung email
- add Tray Iconcheckbox; when checked, SP2004 mimics Prime95 behaviour when app isminimized or close-box is clicked.
- detect CPUs withHyper-Threading Technology and issue log message about running morethan one instance of SP2004.exe
- also use different detectionmechanism for AMD CPUs labeled "Unknown CPU Typ". Prime95 would think these CPUs were AMDK5-class. Now, if the detection works, they'll be classified correctlyas AMD K7-class.
- May 20 2004 - v0.21 - suggestions from Kirk Hubinger email
- correctly set memory value for Customtest values
- remember test settings acrosssessions
- GIMPS's Prime95
- Futuremark's 3DMark 2001 SE
- SiSoftware's Sandra Standard 2004
- Microsoft WHQL HCT System and Server Tests
- Intel Desktop Control Center
