# Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

See the Passmark web site www.passmark.com for the most up to date version of this FAQ

Q. The test run stops after 15minutes, why ?

With the shareware version the tests will only run for 15minutes at a time. After the software has been purchased, the time is unlimited. Note that you can still get a much longer test run in the shareware version by clicking on the Go button each 15minutes. After the software has been purchased the test duration can be increased from the, ‘Auto Stop’ field in the ‘Test preferences’ window.

Q. My License key doesn’t seem to work

Both the User Name and Registration Key must be correctly entered before the software turns itself into the registered version. Be careful because the Key is case sensitive (upper case characters must be entered in upper case and lower case characters must be entered in lower case). The user name must be exactly the same name as when the software was registered. There must also be no space or tab characters before the User name or Key. The best way to avoid typing errors is to Copy and Paste the User name and key from the registration E-Mail. This can be done using the mouse to highlight the text and the keyboard shortcuts, CTRL-C for Copy and CTRL-V for paste.

The User Name and Key should be kept in a safe place in case the software ever needs to be reinstalled (and for upgrades).

Q. Does BurnInTest run from a floppy disk under DOS ?

There is no version of BurnInTest that runs under DOS. While there are some advantages of running tests under DOS, there also plenty of disadvantages. Not all devices are supported under DOS, DOS is not multithreaded and the user interface is poor.

Q. How can I setup BurnInTest to run from a flash drive under Windows ?

-Install BurnInTest on any PC using the normal setup program.

-Run BurnInTest and enter the License Key and User name associated with the license. (if you don't have a license then the flash drive version will only work for 30days)

-Exit BurnInTest.

-Copy all the files (for V4.0 and above, excluding the help file, “bithelp.hlp”) from the BurnInTest installation directory to an empty flash drive. Depending on the version of BurnInTest, normally the installation directory is C:\Program Files\BurnInTest

-That's it, you're finished. Using the Windows Start / Run menu option you can for example enter the following 'bit.exe' to start BurnInTest from the flash drive.

You can now uninstall BurnInTest from the PC hard disk and use the flash drive in the future on other machines. When running BurnInTest this way, there will be no files left on the PC after BurnInTest has finished. You can also get more sophisticated by having multiple test configurations, there is some information about this in the online help file. NOTE: If you are using the unlicensed evaluation version you need to be careful that the date and time is set correctly on all the PC's.

Q. How does BurnInTest work? Doesn't it just wear my computer out ?

Societies’ reliance on computers means that the cost of hardware failure can be enormous (and embarrassing). BurnInTest thoroughly exercises PC hardware in the shortest period of time so intermittent or hidden problems are found before they turn into a disaster. The typical life span of the main moving component in a PC, the hard drive, is quoted at around 300,000 hours by manufacturers such as Seagate. The use of BurnInTest for a 6 to 12 hour period would thus have a no significant impact on the life of the drive. On the other hand, it would allow manufacturing faults and intermittent faults to be detected in a controlled manner when to consequences of failure are minimal.

Q. BurnInTest crashes (with rubbish on the screen or a black screen) when the monitor power save feature turns on after X minutes of running.

Some video cards' device drivers seem to have a bug that causes this crash when the monitor goes into power save mode. If you disable the monitor power save feature (from the Power Management window in the Windows Control panel) this resolves the problem.

Q. I have a dual CPU system, does BurnInTest test both CPU's ?

Yes. Process scheduling in Windows 2000 and XP shares the load between the two processors. Window98 does not support multiple CPU's. In the Pro version of the software it is also possible to target just one of the CPU’s installed. The same principles apply for systems with more than 2 CPU’s.

Q. My system is unstable. What can I do ?

See general instructions for tracking down a fault.

Q. I get the error, “No permission to open RAW network socket” with the Network test.

If you don’t have administrator privileges and are logged onto a Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 or XP system you will get this error with the Network test. You need to have administrator privileges to run this test. In Windows 2000, there is no way to disable this security check. Access to Raw Sockets is granted on a per-transport basis. For the address family AF_INET, only administrators have the access necessary to create Raw Sockets.

Q. When I click on the Preferences & Duration toolbar button (or menu item) nothing happens

Your comctl32.dll library is out of date. The version of Windows that you are using is old and needs to be updated before all the functionality of BurnInTest can be used. If you are using Windows95 or WindowsNT4, you can install Internet Explorer 4.0 or later to update the comctl32.dll library and fix this problem.

Q. Why aren’t the MMX, SSE, or 3DNow! tests available on my computer

These three sets of CPU instructions are not available in the early Processors (e.g. prior to the Pentium II). If you don’t have one of these CPU’s then the test can not be run. 3DNow! is only available on AMD processors.

BurnInTest 64bit version specific:

MMX and 3Dnow! have been superseded and are not supported in BurnInTest. The MMX and 3Dnow! Tests have been removed from the 64bit version of BurnInTest.

End 64bit version specific:

Q. A message like “DDRAW.DLL could not be found” appears when I try and start the program

The 3D tests rely on having the full version of DirectX installed (see System requirements for the version required).

The latest DirectX drivers are available free from Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com

Q. I've downloaded and installed DirectX and BurnInTest now starts but the 3D test still doesn't work.

As the 3D graphics test is running in a window (and not full screen) BurnInTest attempts to find 3D hardware that supports the current color depth used by Windows. (e.g. 16, 24 or 32bits). If your 3D hardware doesn't support the current color depth an error may appear. This is normally only a problem in 32 color. The solution is to change the Window's display mode back to 16bit color and try again. This can be done from the Window's Control panel, Display Properties dialog box.

Q. I have a problem with the 3D tests. Just as the 3D test starts up, my computer crashes and I'm forced to reboot.

There are a small number of video card drivers that don't support hardware accelerated DirectX correctly or have bugs. What you should do is.

-Check that you are using the latest certified video driver for your video card. (ask your computer / video card supplier or check their web page)

-Use the "DxDiag" program to verify your drivers and test Direct3D. You should find "DxDiag" in c:\windows\system or in c:\program files\directx\setup

A number of hardware manufactures produce video cards have very poor software support for 3D graphics (DirectX). This is especially the case for the cheaper, bottom of the range video cards. Poor drivers can result in strange visual artifacts appearing on the screen, poor 3D performance and system crashes. The old saying of, “you get what you pay for”, seems especially true for video cards, Beware.

Q. Clicking on the help menu option “PassMark Homepage” doesn’t work.

You will need to start a browser manually and point it to http://www.passmark.com

Q. The colors on the toolbar look strange as do the objects in the 3D test?

Your computer may be set-up only to use a 256 color display. Changing the display depth from the Windows control panel to a higher value will fix the problem.

Q. I don’t need to do any more tests, how do I uninstall BurnInTest

Use the “add / remove programs” icon in the Windows control panel.

Q. I’ve lost my registration key, how can I get it back

Mail us at help@passmark.com telling us the name that was used to register the software, your E-Mail address, the name of the product (BurnInTest), and roughly the date when the software was purchased. We will mail your key back out to you.

Q. My system crashes from time to time, any idea why?

Here are some general comments about occasional system crashes.

Problems can occur if your computer runs out of system resources because there is some process or driver that doesn't release memory, handles, semaphores, etc.. back to the operating system. After a long period of uptime Windows runs out of resources and dies a terrible death. What can you do about this? Identify the offending software, if you can, and disable it. This can even be a bug in the Operating system however.

Computer can have a Random Crash. What do we mean by this? Many things can bring down a computer. Typical things would be a spike on the power line, a strong burst of Electromagnetic interference (e.g. Mobile phones, electric motors, etc..). If your system is running at its limits due to over clocking or your components are running at the top of their temperature range, small external influences can push your system over the edge, resulting in a terrible death. If you believe in Chaos theory (and most scientists now do), then you also have to believe that computers will just crash unexpected from time to time, how often would depend on the design tolerances built into your hardware. What can you do about this?

-Do as the military do. Buy military specification computer hardware that has higher tolerances.

-Do what NASA does. Run 3 computers at the same time, expecting one to give the wrong answer or crash.

-Do what most big banks do. Run a hot standby system, that can takeover the job of the main computer in a few seconds.

-Do what the Telecommunications industry does. Buy equipment with N+1 redundancy and switch traffic off the faulty hardware. Almost all Telecommunications hardware also has a built in Auto-reboot function. Why? Because they know it will eventually fail.

Timing issue. Some software / hardware bugs only show up in very rare occasions. Classic examples of this are Hardware or Software Interrupts occurring in a critical section of code. What can you do about these types of bugs? Almost nothing as a user. They have plagued software since the first line of code was written they are very difficult problems to find and are almost never picked up during software testing. Problems can occur in Drivers, the operating system, your hardware, everywhere. As everyone is always on a tight deadline, endurance testing often doesn't make it into a software developers test plan.

Also Window 98 just is not designed to run for a long period without the whole system crashing. Windows 2000 is better and some versions of Unix are even better again (in this authors humble opinion).

Mundane program bugs are also a major cause of failure.

Q. How long should I run BurnInTest for?

Not an easy question. In our opinion, the chances or finding a problem in the first hour are relatively high, (the system gets hot, it's the first run across the disk / CD and the first use of the of some of the drivers). Then every hour after that, the chance of finding a hardware problem drops significantly. The extra benefit of doing 12hours compared to 6hours is thus probably not great. Other nice technique is temperature cycling. All major manufactures of electronic equipment do this, they have large ovens and fridges in which they test equipment. The expansion and contraction of components and solder joins brings to light many problems. You could do 6 hours On, 6 hours Off, then 6 hours On, to get some limited temperature variation like this. NASA and the Army load their equipment on to vibration machines, but this may be going to far home / office use :-)