[Cialug] PC diagnostics

[Tom Sellers]

Thanks for the suggestions!  I don't know what folding at home is at this point but will look into it.  If this process encounters an error does it stop or what?


--- On Wed, 2/25/09, kristau <kristau at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: kristau <kristau at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Cialug] PC diagnostics
> To: "Central Iowa Linux Users Group" <cialug at cialug.org>
> Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 6:59 PM
> I've not found a comprehensive benchmark/burn-in Linux
> live CD yet, so
> here's what I usually do if I want to torture test a
> system:
> 1) Boot to a Live CD (System Rescue CD works well, but
> Ubuntu or
> Knoppix should also work).
> 2) Switch to the first virtual console (vc) and kick off
> the following
> (replace {hard drive} with the designation for the drive
> you wish to
> torture):
>     while sleep 3; do dd if=/dev/{hard drive} of=/dev/null
> bs=4k
> conv=sync,noerror; done
> 3) Wait a few minutes, then switch to the second vc and
> kick off
> another instance of the above.  These two together will
> tourture the
> drive by making it seek back and forth across the whole
> drive.  Add a
> third in if you want to introduce more randomness ;)
> 4) In the remaining vc's, launch various stressful
> applications such
> as multiple instances of folding at home, memtest or other
> memory and CPU
> stressors.
> 5) Let all that run for 48 hours or more.  Check on it from
> time to
> time to make sure it hasn't melted a hole through the
> floor.
> -- 
> Tired programmer
> Coding late into the night
> The core dump follows
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