• OC Forum Benchmarks
• What is MBM and can I use it?
• What is WCPUID and can I use it?
• wpcredit quickie guide
• AIDA32 system info, diagnostics and benchmarking program
• What affects my Benchmark
• What should I use to benchmark my HDD?
• What should I do before Benchmarking my Hard Drive?
• What programs should I use to benchmark my HDD?

The Benchmark Club


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by FastEddie
last modified: 2006-09-17 09:42:49

Motherboard Monitor (MBM) is a tool that will display information from the sensor chip on your motherboard in your Windows system tray. MBM supports a wide range of Chipsets & Sensor Chip combinations.

There are 2 version of the program, MBM 4 and MBM 5. MBM 5 is a natural follow up of MBM 4 and is the current supported version. MBM 4 but will no longer be supported, so any new sensors will be added to MBM 5 only.

The next obvious question I get is: "Will mbm work with my board, it is not in your list".

If the board is not in the list this means that no user of that board has tried MBM or no user has taken the time to send feedback to me so I can implement this board.

So what to do if your board is not in the list ? There are a few simple basic rules on which I base my answer if I get this question in my mail:

•Check to see if you can see any temperatures/voltages and or fans in your bios. If this is not the case then you can be 99% sure that your board does not have a hardware sensor chip and thus MBM will not work with it.

•MBM has troubles with the ALI smbus protocol and some (not all) of the VIA smbus protocol. If your board is based on these chipsets then MBM will not find your hardware sensor chip if it's connected to the smbus. If it is connected to the ISA bus then there should be no problem.

•If you have a Dell, Compaq, Presario or other ready made PC then it's very unlikely that there is a sensor chip installed, as so far I have not met one.

Reference

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by FastEddie
last modified: 2004-02-07 14:17:05

You can find WCPUID here.

WCPUID is a program that displays detailed information about your CPU. it shows Frequency, Multiplier, Chipset Info, Cache information, System info and a lot more. it also includes several tweaks (if available for your chip) like disabling the Intel processor serial Number, Cache latency, AMD Athlon Level 2 cache speed settings and others. In addition, WCPUID includes a real-time CPU speed clocking gauge. It shows:

Processor                       L1 T-Cache
Platform                        L1 D-Cache
Vendor String                   L2 Cache
CPU Type                        L2 Speed
Family                          MMX Support
Model                           MMX+ Support
Stepping ID                     SSE Support
Name String                     SSE2 Support
Brand                           3DNow! Support
APIC                            3DNow!+ Support
Internal Clock                  Chipset
System Bus                      VGA
System Clock                    Memory 
Multiplier

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by FastEddie
last modified: 2004-02-07 14:18:31

The guide can be found Here

WPCREDIT is the program that edits PCI Configration Register.
The settings corresponding to each chip set/device are saved in a separate file,
so if you prepare separate message files for each chip sets,
it could be used to edit various chip sets.



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by FastEddie
last modified: 2004-02-07 14:18:46

AIDA32 web site is closed. But the program called Everest continues with the system information and diagnostics capabilities, including online features, memory benchmarks, hardware monitoring, and low-level hardware information.

---

AIDA32 is a professional system information, diagnostics and benchmarking program running on Win32 platforms. It extracts details of all components of the PC. It can display information on the screen, print it, or save it to file in various formats like HTML, CSV or XML. For corporate users, AIDA32 offers command-line switches, network audit and audit statistics, remote system information and network management.

You can find it Here

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by FastEddie
last modified: 2004-05-24 18:57:55

Several things, Your CPU Specs, Video Card, Amount and Speed of RAM, Your FSB *Front Side Bus* Speed, Any Applications running in the background that would possibly hinder a programs performance, etc.


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by FastEddie
last modified: 2004-02-07 12:23:17

A good way to test your hard-drive is by using a program called HDTach or SiSoftSandra.

For an explanation from HDTach, please read below:
HDTach

HD Tach is a physical performance hard drive test for Windows 95/98/ME and Windows NT/2000. In Windows 9X/ME it uses a special kernel mode VXD to get maximum accuracy by bypassing the file system. A similar mechanism is used in Windows NT/2000.
The HD Tach sequential read test is a little bit different from other benchmarks. Most benchmarks create a file on the hard drive and test within that file. The problem is that modern hard drives use a zone bit recording technique that allows different read speeds depending on where the data is located. Data on the outside of the drive is much faster than data recorded on the inside.
HD Tach reads from areas all over the hard drive and reports an average speed. It also logs the read speeds to a text file that you can load into a spreadsheet and graph to visually read the results of the test.
In addition to sequential read, HD Tach tests the drive's random access time. Random access is the true measure of seek speed. Many drives advertise sub 10 millisecond seek speeds, but seek speeds are misleading. Access time is the time it really takes to read data, not just the time it takes to move the head to the proper cylinder. To calculate access time the software must read a single sector off of the hard drive. By reading a sector the drive can not respond to the command until the sector is available, so rotational latency + seek time = access time.
A 7200 rpm drive has a rotational latency of 4.15 ms on average. A 4500 rpm drive has a rotational latency of 6.67 ms on average. So a 7200 rpm drive with a seek of 12.5ms has an access time that is just as fast as a 4500 rpm drive with a seek of 10.0 ms.
Finally, HD Tach tests the drive burst speed. The burst speed is the speed that data can be accessed from the drive's on-board read-ahead memory. This measures the speed of the drive and controller interface. Currently UltraDMA/66 IDE drives can reach 66mb/s. Ultra2LVD SCSI drives burst up to 80mb/s.

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by SVTRanger edited by FastEddie
last modified: 2004-02-07 12:23:33

You should try the following:
• Defrag the partition that you are going to test
• Reboot your computer before running the benchmarking tests
• Make sure you are not running anything in the background, i.e. Seti@Home, Folding@Home, or anything that is either taking up memory or using cpu cycles.
• Make sure your using the right cable. 80 Conductor for UDMA66/100/133.


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by SVTRanger edited by FastEddie
last modified: 2004-02-07 12:23:49

There are many programs out there that test hard drive performance but 2 really stand out. They are ATTO Diskbench and HDTACH. Please don't trust SiSoft Sandra to test your hard drive performance as it is very poor at doing so!

You can download HDTach Here and ATTO Diskbench here

Here are some shots of the two programs.



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by Exit edited by FastEddie
last modified: 2004-02-07 12:24:18