Within the processor test, in addition to the general information such as manufacturer, name, architecture, cache memory and much more, you also have access to extended information with a list of all units and expansions of the CPU. In addition to the information, there are the CPU tests (list below), which you can use to check the CPU for errors and place a heavy load on it.
What is being tested?
As described below, there are different tests for the different components of a CPU. In addition to the internal functions, high loads also test the cooling and temperature throttling of the CPU. If the temperature is too high and the CPU reduces its clock speed or switches off individual physical cores completely, you will be informed during the test and the duration will be documented in the log afterwards.
In a device with several physical CPUs, depending on the subtest selected, an attempt is made to test either all CPUs at the same time or all cores from 0-511 one after the other. A total of 512 physical CPU cores are supported, divided into one or more physical CPUs.
Which subtests are available?
| Untertest | Description |
| Stress-Test | A test specifically designed for high loads that uses all existing functional units (FPU, MMX, 3DNow, SSE) simultaneously and runs on all threads/cores/CPUs at the same time in multi-core/multi-CPU systems. You can choose the duration and the CPUs/Cores. |
| High load test | Tests specifically designed for high loads, which are tailored to the CPU type, share all existing functional units (FPU, MMX, 3DNow, SSE, AVX) and run on all threads/cores/CPUs simultaneously in multi-core/multi-CPU systems . You can choose the duration and the CPUs/Cores. The following options are available: – Maximum processor load – High processor load (L2 cache) – High processor load (L4 cache, fallback memory) – Memory load – Mixed processor/ Memory load |
| CPU-Kern | Tests each individual core of the CPU or CPUs one after the other. The functions CPU registers, stack manipulation, addressing modes, processor flags, integer arithmetic, BCD operations, bit operations, sequence control, string operations, processor I/O and exceptions are tested. |
| FPU | Tests the functions of the FPU per core: loading and saving, instruction set, rounding and truncation, and exceptions. |
| MMX-Einheit | Tests the functions of the MMX unit per core: data transfers, packed arithmetic, packed comparisons, data conversion, logical operations and shift operations. |
| 3DNow!-Einheit | Tests the functions of the 3DNow! unit per core. This unit is only available on AMD CPUs and only on processors that support it. |
| SSE-Einheit | Tests the functions of the SSE unit per core: data transfers, packed arithmetic, packed comparisons, data conversion, logical operations and shift operations. |
| AVX-Einheit | Tests the functions of the AVX unit per core: data transfers, packed arithmetic, packed comparisons, data conversion, logical operations and shift operations. |
| L2-Cache-Test | Tests the CPU's L2 cache using the same methods as the memory test . |
| L3-Cache-Test | If available, test the CPU's L3 cache using the same methods as the Memory test. |
| L4-Cache-Test | If available, test the CPU's L4 cache using the same methods as the Memory test. |
All tests always try to test as much as possible on all systems. Depending on which program and environment you are in, more or less testing can be carried out. For example, if you use toolstar®testLX the restrictions are minimal. If you use toolstar®testWIN within a running Windows Restrictions are greater and the accessible resources are significantly fewer than self-booting with toolstar®testLX .
The right selection of CPU high load tests
The Maximum processor load test is preselected by default. This leads to a balanced high load on the CPU and should lead to a large increase in temperature on a large majority of systems. However, each of the tests has a different load scenario and can therefore potentially find different errors. You can put all 5 tests in a group and run them simultaneously. However, we recommend that you define a separate group for each test and run each CPU high load test individually or in combination with other tests such as hard drives or memory (excluding memory load).
Hinweise und Tipps zu den Prozessortests
- The above-mentioned limitation of toolstar®testWIN can be minimized in which you are using a Windows®PE/RE. Maybe our free toolstar®PEBuilder is interesting for you?
- Only what is present on the current system is tested, regardless of which subtests you have selected within an automation script. Non-existent components such as 3DNow! on Intel CPUs are simply skipped and are not considered errors.
- The CPU is a critical component in the system and the CPU is always in play, no matter what happens within a system (hard drive accesses, network activity, memory accesses, image output, USB hotplugging and much more). It is therefore advisable to create the automation scripts accordingly with this background knowledge. For example, it can be good to test CPU, RAM and hard drives simultaneously on a large server, but on a small mini PC it can cause the system to become unstable because the load is too high. It's best to build scripts for different operational environments and systems. This allows you to achieve optimal load for the respective device type and get the most out of the test software.
