Major upgrade - no appreciable performance increase

[2uantuM]

This is expected because processor and memory are not the bottlenecks when it comes to opening large programs. If this is what you wanted to increase, you should have invested in a lower latency hard drive (SSD) or Raptor. Opening photo files and other applications are such trivial tasks for the processor that your old processor and memory probably weren't even stressed at all, so as expected, upgrading them is utterly pointless. However, you should see a marked improvement in Photoshop applying gigantic gaussian blur filters on 100 MB PSD files....

People keep saying you need a Raptor or an SSD drive, but this simply isn't true. Any of the new SATA drives will be more than sufficient. There is some truth to what the person is saying above though as far as opening images and applications is concerned. Those really aren't reasons for upgrading.

Bump you memory voltage to 2.1 volts as someone else recommended and see if you have any added system stability. Your lockups indicate there is something wrong -- this obviously isn't normal. What are your system temperatures?

 

[nitz12]

Opening photo files and other applications are such trivial tasks for the processor that your old processor and memory probably weren't even stressed at all, so as expected, upgrading them is utterly pointless. However, you should see a marked improvement in Photoshop applying gigantic gaussian blur filters on 100 MB PSD files....

Ha ha

There is some truth to what the person is saying above though as far as opening images and applications is concerned. Those really aren't reasons for upgrading.

Bump you memory voltage to 2.1 volts

I already did bump my voltage, but while you and the other guy seem to be fixated on some idiot upgrading his system to open picture files faster to apply gaussian blur, neither seemed to read the part where I said the main reason I upgraded was to perform video and photo editing. Video editing is a teeny tiny bit more intensive than opening a picture file.

Even if you think someone may have done something stupid or spent $1,000 needlessly, there's no real value or anything constructive in pointing it out.

 

[Crosshairs]

+1 for a new hard drive....Putting an ATA 100 drive on an IP35 with a Quad is like putting a moped engine in a Viper.

Just grab any new SATA drive , preferably one with 16Mb cache, and I'm sure your going to see a huge improvement.

 

[Crosshairs]

Nope, I just went through the thread again and as a matter of fact I did not see the part where you said "the main reason you upgraded was to perform video and photo editing"...because you never said it in this thread.

Uh, yes he did...

right HERE

Post # 34...

your comments are unnecessary dude...please try and keep it respectful

 

[Ethug]

There are several things happening here:
1)The OP doesn't yet know enough about what hes doing to keep his system stable. I'm not knocking him, it takes time to learn, but theres facts. If he has consistent crashes and bluescreens on every system he builds he needs to sort all that out first.
2)He probably bought far too much computer for his uses, especially considering #1

 

[2uantuM]

I already did bump my voltage, but while you and the other guy seem to be fixated on some idiot upgrading his system to open picture files faster to apply gaussian blur, neither seemed to read the part where I said the main reason I upgraded was to perform video and photo editing. Video editing is a teeny tiny bit more intensive than opening a picture file.

You are the one who keeps talking about opening files quickly. Not me or him.

 

[Flopper]

If you have a stable system its not going to be a much faster experience opening most applications.

The way a program works seldom has to do with speed of the cpu and more of how much the program is loaded into a fast medium.
Vista for example use superfetch to load programs into ram based on your habits of using the computer.(average 2 weeks)

Using XP, If you do videoediting then a quadcore will make the system much faster crunching.
A Harddrive might be able to speed up some things, but again I bet your expectations was to big for the increase you expected.

 

[nitz12]

OK, it seems like the best course of action is to obtain a SATA hard drive with 16MB cache, the difference between that and a Raptor won't be as apparent as the difference between my current HD and a new SATA HD, considering the cost savings.

I may get a 500GB Seagate that fits the bill, so my question becomes, what is the best way to partition it, and is there any benefit/negatives to more than two partitions as far as performance goes?

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

 

[natesuniverse]

Get a pair of cheap drives and put them in raid. My raid 0 system has been stable for a while now and the ahci I have in the sytem has gone down 3 times still down just don't want to mess with it. Back your Important stuff up on the old ata. If your doing video editing you'll love the speed increase most likely.

 

[nitz12]

Get a pair of cheap drives and put them in raid. My raid 0 system has been stable for a while now and the ahci I have in the sytem has gone down 3 times still down just don't want to mess with it. Back your Important stuff up on the old ata. If your doing video editing you'll love the speed increase most likely.

Will following this method be more stable and faster than a more expensive single drive with 16MB cache?

 

[bicycle_wreck]

OK, it seems like the best course of action is to obtain a SATA hard drive with 16MB cache, the difference between that and a Raptor won't be as apparent as the difference between my current HD and a new SATA HD, considering the cost savings.

I may get a 500GB Seagate that fits the bill, so my question becomes, what is the best way to partition it, and is there any benefit/negatives to more than two partitions as far as performance goes?

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

I would recommend this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288

Its a 500 GB Seagate with 32mb cache instead of 16mb. Some guy doing a review on NewEgg was talking about having to update the firmware, but I don't know what that's all about. They don't exactly screen these people, so take it with a grain of salt. Even if there is merit to it, a firmware update is not that difficult. Contacting Seagate would probably be the most time-consuming part of the whole thing.

As far as partitioning the drive, you won't gain or lose any performance, its still the same physical drive. Its like drawing a line on the floor to keep your sibling's stuff on his/her side of the room. Its still the same room. Ahh, back in the day.

Will following this method be more stable and faster than a more expensive single drive with 16MB cache?

In your case I don't think it would be beneficial. You're just adding more noise, heat, and power consumption to your rig. Also, its one more thing to configure, and that just doesn't sound like something you would want to bother yourself with, but I could be wrong.

 

[ilkhan]

I said the main reason I upgraded was to perform video and photo editing. Video editing is a teeny tiny bit more intensive than opening a picture file.

So have you tested video and photo editing? THOSE are CPU limited activites, and especially for the video (not a lot of photo stuff is quad threaded) you should see HUGE gains.

But the rest of the guys are right. If you are looking for program opening improvements you need a new drive. And as was mentioned, vista's superfetch WILL help you with that as well. If its already in ram, you dont have to touch the HDD which is the bottleneck for that situation.

 

[Rabid Badger]

Get a pair of cheap drives and put them in raid. My raid 0 system has been stable for a while now and the ahci I have in the sytem has gone down 3 times still down just don't want to mess with it. Back your Important stuff up on the old ata. If your doing video editing you'll love the speed increase most likely.

RAID 0 is not a good idea if you're storing information that you don't want to lose and the performance benefits are mixed. If you want speed and reliability then you'll need to go with a RAID 5 or 0+1 setup which would mean buying 3-4 drives. Not to mention that two cheap drives with 8MB of cache each will likely be slower than one big drive with a 16-32MB cache.

As I said before I picked up the 500GB 7200.11 myself and it blew my 80GB WD SATA out of the water (gotta love that 32MB cache). The performance leap coming from PATA will only be more impressive.

 

[nitz12]

So have you tested video and photo editing? THOSE are CPU limited activites, and especially for the video (not a lot of photo stuff is quad threaded) you should see HUGE gains.

But the rest of the guys are right. If you are looking for program opening improvements you need a new drive. And as was mentioned, vista's superfetch WILL help you with that as well. If its already in ram, you dont have to touch the HDD which is the bottleneck for that situation.

The whole problem is that I've seen no performance increase with the Q6600 with videos and editing them. I don't have Vista. Everyone has said I need an new hard drive to see the gains in speed. I still get choppy video playback with the new system. Before, the video was choppy and the video would frequently fall behind the audio (well, I guess that's a performance increase). I would not consider that a huge gain. The video playback could be software related due to the newer file format I work with, AVCHD. Nevertheless, my expectation is smooth playback, which is far from as taxing as editing the vids. Does the hard drive have much to do with video playback? I have been able to convert the files in one software, then burn DVD's with another, but if I use one software, Nero, start to finish, the end product is as choppy as the playback and is unwatchable. I realize Nero is not top of the line, but I would have expected it to perform as well or better than the limited software SONY supplied with the camcorder.

Opening programs is not one of my primary concerns, I was just making a comparison with what one other fellow stated to illustrate that my system is slow.

 

[jwhazel]

It has locked up on me several times, necessitating reboots, and several programs have crashed while in use

I just went through my system, remember, it's a Q6600, and the fastest any program opened and was ready to use was 5 seconds.

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand everyones ethos behind "a newer, faster hard drive will fix all of these problems". Especially not the locking up and crashing part.

Programs that used to drag along still drag along.

I upgraded from a P4 2.7ghz @ 712mb to a e6320 @ 2gb to a q6600 @ 2gb. Each time I saw the following programs speed up (launch time and operation): photoshop cs3, premiere cs3, aftereffects, dvd ripping/divx encoding. Theres definately something wrong here, I seriously doubt it is the hard drive.

OP, I know you're getting alot of advice in this thread, sometimes conflicting. If it was me, I would troubleshoot in this order:

1.) Check to make sure your hard drive is running in DMA mode (link). I never understood why but about 15% of the computers I fix are running in PIO mode. It slows even the fastest computers down to a crawl.
2.) Run memtest. I know several people recommmended it, but I didn't see anywhere if you were able to run it successfully.
3.) Boot into the windows repair console and run "chkdsk /p /r". That will check for and (sometimes) repair bad sectors on the hard drive. Bad sectors can cause weird crashes and slow startups even on the fastests hard drives.

several programs have crashed while in use - just like would happen with the old system.

4.) I notice you're running a coolermaster power supply. Is this by any chance from your old build? Do you have a way to swap it out and test with a different power supply?

I'm not saying that a newer hard drive set up properly won't offer you any benefits, but as long as your current ones are in good working order (step 3 should confirm this), you should be experiencing much better performance out of your system.

 

[Clockz]

I don't know why this is but generally it's much harder to tell when you're using a faster/better system. Try using your old system after a few months then it will be really apparent how slow it was.

Plus you're really not going to have a "wow" type upgrade unless you go a long time (5+ years) between upgrades or upgrade from a very crappy system to something way better. There just isn't that much difference otherwise, at least not an in-your-face "WOW" difference.

 

[ilkhan]

The...slow.

Try googling for a program called "process explorer" its an advanced version of task manager. open it, click on the CPU chart, and select "Show one graph per CPU". Do some editing/encoding and watch to see how those graphs respond. There should be 4 and while encoding they should be pegged. If not describe how the graphs respond during the encoding. Your codec/program may not be multithreaded which would really hold it back.

Also download CPU-Z and imageshack a screenshot taken on its front page with something going in the background (to prevent power savings from dropping the mult).

It sounds to me like you are having major issues that aren't beyond fixing. But we need more info.

 

[jyi786]

I've read this entire thread from beginning to end, and got sort of lost. I don't recall if the OP made this clear or not.

Since this is an upgrade, have you done a clean install of Windows? Just need to be sure and get that out of the way.

About the photo and video editing. You surely got a nice rig, but everyone is about right. You need to have a new hard drive to go with it.

Second, a system is only as good as its weakest link. After install, without any OS/driver optimization, I can get the rig in my sig to chug just like my old Pentium 60 does. It can be THAT SLOW. And that's due to no/poor optimization. Drivers need to be configured properly, tweaks need to be put in place, programs need to be configured properly and updated. Case in point, Adobe Photoshop CS3. You can have all the memory in the world, but if you didn't open the program's preferences and edit the memory usage, you'd constantly be hitting the swap file much sooner than you'd like, and then you'd complain that your system is not running fast enough.

Bottom line: you've got the hardware, and soon, hopefully, you'll have your new hard drive. Just know that that's not all there is to getting a nice, smooth as butter fast system. It's going to take tweaking, configuring and optimizing. And we'll be here to help you with that.

 

[Dan_D]

A fresh install of Windows when you perform a system upgrade should be a given. That's the best thing you can do. I know you can make the previous install work sometimes but it isn't worth doing most of the time.

In any case while the OP may see some bennefit from a new hard disk drive, the expectations for performance still need to remain realistic. Hard drives are all slow and as such all machines are limited by them. Not just the mechanical speed of the drives themselves but the anemic bandwidth the SATA interface offers is also a limitation. In general application usage, surfing the web and performing basic tasks the difference won't be huge. A decent system from even 3 years ago or so can still be snappy and quick for general usage if properly tuned. A new system will show almost no gains there. It won't be until you start encoding video, editing video and playing the latest and greatest 3D games will you really see a difference between the two machines. I guarantee if there is nothing wrong with the new system, old hard drive or not it will smoke the old box at any of those more complex and difficult tasks.

 

[jyi786]

A fresh install of Windows when you perform a system upgrade should be a given. That's the best thing you can do. I know you can make the previous install work sometimes but it isn't worth doing most of the time.

In any case while the OP may see some bennefit from a new hard disk drive, the expectations for performance still need to remain realistic. Hard drives are all slow and as such all machines are limited by them. Not just the mechanical speed of the drives themselves but the anemic bandwidth the SATA interface offers is also a limitation. In general application usage, surfing the web and performing basic tasks the difference won't be huge. A decent system from even 3 years ago or so can still be snappy and quick for general usage if properly tuned. A new system will show almost no gains there. It won't be until you start encoding video, editing video and playing the latest and greatest 3D games will you really see a difference between the two machines. I guarantee if there is nothing wrong with the new system, old hard drive or not it will smoke the old box at any of those more complex and difficult tasks.

All ditto +1 and exactly my points referring to my above post. Dan is absolutely correct, and I certainly hope the OP is in fact running on a new install of Windows.

 

[nitz12]

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand everyones ethos behind "a newer, faster hard drive will fix all of these problems". Especially not the locking up and crashing part.



I upgraded from a P4 2.7ghz @ 712mb to a e6320 @ 2gb to a q6600 @ 2gb. Each time I saw the following programs speed up (launch time and operation): photoshop cs3, premiere cs3, aftereffects, dvd ripping/divx encoding. Theres definately something wrong here, I seriously doubt it is the hard drive.

OP, I know you're getting alot of advice in this thread, sometimes conflicting. If it was me, I would troubleshoot in this order:

1.) Check to make sure your hard drive is running in DMA mode (link). I never understood why but about 15% of the computers I fix are running in PIO mode. It slows even the fastest computers down to a crawl.
2.) Run memtest. I know several people recommmended it, but I didn't see anywhere if you were able to run it successfully.
3.) Boot into the windows repair console and run "chkdsk /p /r". That will check for and (sometimes) repair bad sectors on the hard drive. Bad sectors can cause weird crashes and slow startups even on the fastests hard drives.
4.) I notice you're running a coolermaster power supply. Is this by any chance from your old build? Do you have a way to swap it out and test with a different power supply?

I'm not saying that a newer hard drive set up properly won't offer you any benefits, but as long as your current ones are in good working order (step 3 should confirm this), you should be experiencing much better performance out of your system.

Hi all,

Yes, this is a fresh install of XP Pro.

Did all of the above except the PS swap. Running in DMA mode already. Windows did say it repaired some sectors, but didn't specify the extent of the repair. Ran memtest for a couple hours and got no errors.

So, after I rebooted after all this, I'll try to explain what happened, but I tried to open a program (and this has happened with any of the programs and Firefox as well) and all I got was the border of the window with the inside of the border simply the desktop. Then everything stopped working and had to reboot. Doesn't happen everytime, but often. At least as often as my old configuration. I hope everyone understands when I say the program started to open, but I only saw the window borders, the interior was transparent.

Note that the primary reason I started the thread was the lack of performance in video encoding, editing, etc. I should have seen an improvement, without the hanging and locking up.

One thing I did notice is that my RAM is showing as 5-5-5-18 in CPU-Z, but it is supposed to be 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1V. I have it set to 2.1V already. Will this make a big difference?

 

[Forceman]

One thing I did notice is that my RAM is showing as 5-5-5-18 in CPU-Z, but it is supposed to be 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1V. I have it set to 2.1V already. Will this make a big difference?

Is it set to 4-4-4-12 in the BIOS? It won't make a noticeable difference in any case.

Modern hard drives having bad sectors is a bad sign - I would start thinking about getting a new drive. Does the one you have now have SMART monitoring? Can you get a diagnostic tool from the manufacturer to check the drive?

 

[DonDon]

Hey Nitz, don't get put off by some of the posts that you get in the forums. Just ignore the rude ones, and ask for explanations for the stuff you don't understand. We sometimes forget that not everyone understands the jargon we use here.

I, personally would suspect the hard drive or the power supply. Anything else that followed over to the new system would be a suspect also.

Every hard drive manufacturer has a utility to check out their products. Go here Data Lifeguard for Windows to get the windows utilities for your hard drive and run the full test on it. It could take a while, so be patient.

If your power supply is going intermittently bad, there is no real easy way to check it other than to install a new power supply. Just checking the voltages won't tell you if it is intermittent.

I recently had a flakey DSL modem for several months. I was just about to switch back to cable when the power supply for it finally died competely. New power suuply and it works perfectly. Go figure.

Anyways, one more thing to check would be your Bios settings. Have you reset the Bios settings to the "default compatible" settings. You may also see an option for "performance settings." The compatible settings are less likely to cause problems, but may not wring every single ounce of performance out of your system.

After many months of hemming and hawing, I just placed an order for a new Q6600 based system from Cyberpower PC. It was only $1326 delivered and comes with a 3 year warranty and lifetime 24/7 tech support. I had to buy it as my current systems are both AGP based, and my vid cards prevented Supreme Commander form installing.

I would have been hard pressed to beat the price for the parts alone, not counting the warranty and support.

Q6600
2 gig Mushkin Extreme mem 4,4,4,12
Asus P5n-e
8800 GT Not SLI for now
Coolermaster Cosmos case
Coolermaster 600w PS
2 X 320 gig 16 m cache 7200 Pata II HD (raid 0)
Thermaltake V1 Cooler

I hope my upgrade goes smoother than yours.

Good luck

Don

 

[jwhazel]

Windows did say it repaired some sectors,

So, after I rebooted after all this, I'll try to explain what happened...

Hard drive is indeed the source of your problems. If we follow the logical progression here, you were having issues with windows > hard drive had bad sectors > you repaired bad sectors with chkdsk > chkdsk moved (or tried to move) data out of these areas > windows is now worse, most likely due to missing data/corrupted files.

The quick (possible) fix to this is to pop your XP install disc into the drive and run "sfc /scannow" at the command prompt. This will repair corrupted files sometimes, not a guaranteed fix. I would highly recommend a hard drive replacment though.

Just to make it clear, its because your hard drive(s) are bad (or are at least going bad), not because they were incredibly slow to begin with. Speaking of that, I think you originally said that you had 2 hard drives. Just in case you haven't, run chkdsk on both of them to see if there are any bad sectors. Will keep you from losing data.

 

[Forceman]

Plus, if Windows detects a lot of read errors on a hard drive (or CD/DVD) it will automatically downclock the drive to a lower DMA mode potentially significantly impacting performance.

 

[theNoid]

It's not 10x faster in Firefox, or Word, or even Windows. Unless you are playing games or encoding video, then no, you aren't going to see a major difference between a 3400+ and a Q6600.

I do both, and look forward to my Q6600

 

[Dethred]

I agree its almost 100% your hard drive, but here's a shot in the dark:

When I got my IP35 Pro with my Q6600 the motherboard turned out to be the problem. It would take a normal amount of time to boot, but everything in Windows was slower than my dad's old P3 750Mhz machine. I tried replacing the ram, swapping PSU's, Hard drives, etc. Finally I RMA'ed the motherboard and got my DQ6. Everything has been running great since then.

 

[nitz12]

Several months ago I started this thread. I ultimately ended up getting a new hard drive, which improved performance to a small degree. However, the system runs so poorly now, that I am forced to run it in Safe Mode in order to do anything at all, like write this post. I have countless symptoms, I've run all the anti-spyware and anti-virus software which returned nothing.
-All programs are sluggish.
-Anytime I click in a program I get the hourglass
-Sometimes the screen goes black, then comes back a few moments later. Checked all the monitor settings and it seems to be OK
-If I download a file, I click the Save button and nothing happens for perhaps 10 seconds, then I see it depress as it normally would instantly with the mouse click.
-It takes forever to then run the downloaded item
-At one point, with no programs open except the Task Manager, the CPU showed usage at 78%.
-When I type a word to do a search online, no letters appear until several seconds later.


I am at my wits end. This is a Quad Core, and I've seen nothing of the kind of improvement over my ancient Athlon 3500. Everything hangs. I've tried everything else that's been posted here as suggestions, except for changing the power supply. It would seem peculiar if that would cause these symptoms, and I can't afford to make the change at this time.

Can anyone offer any kind of diagnostic help that doesn't require an immense amount of time expenditure to perform?

Thanks!

 

[Forceman]

Have you tried reformating and reinstalling the OS? Really sounds like some kind of spyware/malware at work there.

 

[nitz12]

No, since I am currently doing this in Safe Mode, I haven't reformatted the hard drive. I was hoping to avoid anything major, but is it possible the motherboard is bad?

Like I said, "Can anyone offer any kind of diagnostic help that doesn't require an immense amount of time expenditure to perform?". Reformatting and reinstalling Windows would not fall into that category. I am just sick about this whole thing. It's like I spend hundreds of dollars and got the machine I wanted to get rid of.

 

[NECyclone]

I'd say you need to go ahead and reformat the harddrive the OS is on and reinstall Windows. After that reinstall the video software you use and tryusing it. If stuff is still slow and the computer is still flaky then in my opinion the motherboard needs to be sent back.

Good Luck.

p.s. I keep a big hammer next to my computer.....just in case it acts up...It never has.

 

[Dangman]

Sorry but from what you're telling us, most of the diagnostic help suggested now will require an immense amount of time.

Some questions:
- What app is using 70% CPU usage?
- What Anti-spyware and Anti-virus scanner are you using?
- Are you using a regular XP install CD? Not like stripped down or anything.
- Did you update your drivers?
- Are you using any kind of apps downloaded from torrents? In fact is all the software installed on your PC or offiicial?

Anyway, yes a PSU can cause some stability problems. Though not neccessarily performance problems. However I still recommend replacing the PSU just to rule it out.

Some other troubleshooting:
- Complete and total reformat
- Update your drivers

 

[RamonGTP]

This sounds like a classic example of bad ram slowly corrupting the system to the point that it is unusable. Sometimes bad hard drives can cause this issue too, but that has already been replaced. Swap the ram out and do a clean install. I went from a X2 4400+ to a Q6600 and the difference was huge. Not for your basic usage, but anything even remotely intensive saw improvement.

 

[Forceman]

Any chance you have a spare hard drive laying around? You could try a clean install on that and see if it fixed your problem - if not then it is probably hardware, if it fixes the problem then it would point towards an OS problem. At this point it sounds like you've tried all the "easy" fixes and it is time to move to more dramatic ones.

 

[9mmx19]

SuperFetch only shows an increas with a ReadyBoost flash drive.

I dont think thats true.

 

[lanolar]

I would also consider a new power supply considering its from the old system and could be having issues. That could be wreaking havoc with your system stability, your HDD, your RAM etc etc.

Make sure your heatsink is seated flush on the cpu with the proper amount of thermal paste.

Make sure your BIOS is up to date. If so, reset the CMOS to make sure nothing is gone funky.

Run memtest. I know its a pain. Do it anyway.

Best of luck man, I know how frustrating that stuff can be.

 

[nitz12]

Thanks for all your suggestions. To answer some of the questions:

- What app is using 70% CPU usage? That's just it, the only thing running at the time was the Task Manager.

-What Anti-spyware and Anti-virus scanner are you using? I ran Ad-Aware, Spybot SD, CA Anti-Spyware and Anti-Virus

-All drivers are current; nothing downloaded from torrent

-Don't have any RAM around to swap out, nor the cash to get some more

-Windows XP and all software full, legal versions

-Heatsink is fine, no heat issues

- BIOS is up to date

One note: I ran Hijack This and deleted about 5 entries - I am now able to run in normal Windows mode and things are more responsive, at least the internet. Haven't tried to run any software, but I doubt whatever I did will eliminate all the other issues.

Thanks again.

 

[RamonGTP]

If you don't have or can't get more ram to swap out then try running with one stick at a time. You'll have to do this AFTER you reinstall since the system is already pretty screwed up.

 

[mystykmax]

If you don't have or can't get more ram to swap out then try running with one stick at a time. You'll have to do this AFTER you reinstall since the system is already pretty screwed up.

he said he already ran memtest for hours with no errors, so I don't think it's ram. I'd suspect the motherboard honestly.

 

[RamonGTP]

he said he already ran memtest for hours with no errors, so I don't think it's ram. I'd suspect the motherboard honestly.

memtest is virutally useless unless the stick has some VERY major errors. If his memory is bad, but has still been able to use the computer for the past several months then it is very likely memtest won't detect the error. I've had a bad stick pass for 8 straight hours on memtest and never once threw up an error code. Eventually I gave up and stopped the test. Prime95 on the other hand threw up an error within 3 minutes.