"burning in"

[TeeTewl]

I notice that there is a burn in fee on some sites when you buy a board and cpu as a unit (ie. Accessmicro) What is burning in and can you do this yourself? Is it just assembllng them and adding power to see if they hold up? I recently posted here (Tom's etc.) about cpu speed. I was getting a lower setting than the chip was rated. Then after using it awhile it started working right every time. Could it have been a form of burning in? If these are dumb questions forgive me I just started building my own and will Never go back to a "company box). Now I'm going to build one for my son too...with all the THG forum pointing the way LOL...


Can't hit a lob wedge...

 

[ChipDeath]

'Burning In' usually means running programs which give as much stress as possible to the computer, to see if it's 100% stable.

It's useful if you're overclocking, or have just built a PC, as it will help to highlight any problems which might not otherwise appear except after many days of normal use.

For example, because I like to fiddle about with overclocking, I need to know if my current setup will be completely stable at the new speed, whenever I adjust things. I usually do this by running Sisoft Sandra's Burn-in wizard (which runs repeated intensive calculations to put the CPU & memory under stress) whilst simultaneously running 3dmark in a continuos loop, and playing MP3s (mostly because it is then providing a small amount of intertainment, plus means If the music's stopped it's crashed )

The basic idea is if it can handle that much stress for 5 hours or more with no crashes, it's stable.

---
Epox 8RDA+ rev1.1 w/ Custom NB HS
XP1700+ @205x11 (~2.26Ghz), 1.575Vcore
2x256Mb Corsair PC3200LL 2-2-2-4
Sapphire 9800Pro 420/744

 

[Cybercraig]

At Mwave they call it "assemble and test bundle" - $9.00
I always do it because then I know I will have working components rather than having to RMA a part and wait a week. In an assembled PC they normally run a 24-48 hr burn-in to make sure everything is stable before they ship it. They almost always include that service in the final price you pay. Either way, why risk going without it? DOA parts are NO fun!


"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. Now, let's eat!