SCHOOLS DIVISION OF CAMARINES SUR

LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET IN COMPUTER SYSTEMS SERVICING NC II

Quarter 3: Week 6, Worksheet No. 1

STRESS TESTING THE PC

Name of Student:
Learning Area-Grade Level: TVL-CSS - Grade 11
Date:

Stress testing (sometimes called torture testing) is a form of deliberately intense or

thorough testing used to determine the stability of a given system or entity. It involves testing
beyond normal operational capacity, often to a breaking point, in order to observe the results.
Reasons can include: to determine breaking points or safe usage limits; to test stable
operation of a part or system outside standard usage; to confirm mathematical model is
accurate enough in predicting breaking points or safe usage limits; to determine modes of
failure (how exactly a system fails); and to confirm intended specifications are being met.

Lesson 8: Install and Configure Computer Systems

LO 5.2. Conduct stress test to ensure reliability of equipment in accordance with

manufacturer’s instructions and system requirements.

At the end of the lesson, students are expected to:

a. Identify the different tools used for conducting stress test on PC.
b. Reflect on the importance of conducting stress testing on the PC.
c. Classify the testing tools according to their type of use.

Activity I

Identify what type of stress testing being describe in the following item. Write your
answer on the space provided before each number.

____________ 1. This utility will allow users to select which component to stress test and for
how long it will test. As it is designed for overclocking the CPU, it is designed
to give information about the CPU such as utilization, frequency,
temperatures, and whether thermal throttling was detected during the stress
testing.

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____________ 2. It is a controversial free GPU stress testing utility as it stresses the GPU by
producing a complicated 3D image and when run for an extended period of
time, it has been known to fry some older graphics cards that lacked certain
voltage limit protections.
____________ 3. It is one of the best memory stress testing tools. It is extremely easy to use
and all that is needed to get it going is to simply hit the “Begin Test” button
and the utility will proceed testing.
____________ 4. It is a very comprehensive full system diagnostic utility typically aimed at
engineers, IT professionals, and systems enthusiasts.
____________ 5. It has a clean, easy to use interface and will provide real time information
such as utilization, temperature, clock speed, and power usage of the
onboard components.

Activity 2

Write three reasons on why you have to conduct stress testing on your computer
devices. Explain your answers briefly and refer to the rubrics on Part IV for scoring.

1. _____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________

Activity 3

Below are stress testing tools that you can use on your computer. Classify each tool
as to which component of the computer it is used. Write your answers by grouping them in the
box below.

HW Monitor AIDA64 Funmark 3D Mark

Intel Extreme Memtest 64 Intel Processor CPU Stress

Tuning Utility Diagnostic Tool Testing

System RAM GPU Full System

Monitoring

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Website: www.depedcamsur.com
Telephone No: (telefax) 8713340 |2
Rubrics for Activity 2
Scoring Rubrics
5 4 3 2 Score
The content 80% of the 40% of the The content is
Content

reflects the content reflects content reflects unrelated and

learner’s the learner’s the learner’s irrelevant to the
understanding of understanding of understanding lesson.
the lesson. the lesson. of the lesson.
There are no There are 1-2 There are 3-4 Too many
Mechanics

errors in spelling, errors in spelling, errors in punctuation and

punctuation, or punctuation, and spelling, grammatical
grammar usage. grammar usage. punctuation, errors that
and grammar interfere with the
usage. meaning.
The essay is well- The essay shows The essay The essay is not
Organizatio

organized and some shows poor organized and is

flows logically. It organization and organization written illogically.
n

shows a mature flows logically to and weak

understanding of be easily logical flow.
transitioning. understood.
TOTAL

DepEd CG . 2016. "Curriculum Guide." K to 12 - Computer Systems Servicing NC II Curriculum Guide.

DepEd, May.

Prepared by:

MICHAEL C. DELFINO, TI, Sagrada NHS, Tinambac North District, SDO Camarines Sur

Quality Assured by:

ROWENA L. PRADO, TII, Carmel NHS, Libmanan District, SDO Camarines Sur
EDMARK M. PADO, TI, Maydaso ES, Milaor District, SDO Camarines Sur

Validated by:
IAN JOSEPH C. VELASCO, TI, Bagacay NHS, Tinambac District, SDO Cam. Sur
ALICIA B. CHAVEZ, TII, La Salvacion NHS, Tigaon District, SDO Camarines Sur

Layout Artists:
EUGENE T. ABRAGAN, TII, Sagurong HS, Pili District, SDO Camarines Sur
JOHN PAULO C. CHAVEZ, TI, Tapayas NHS, Balatan District, SDO Camarines Sur

Reviewed by: SALVADOR T. PELINGON, EPS-ICT, SDO Camarines Sur

Address: Freedom Sports Complex, San Jose, Pili, Camarines Sur

Email: deped.camsur@deped.gov.ph
Website: www.depedcamsur.com
Telephone No: (telefax) 8713340 |3
 Answers may vary
Activity II

5. HW Monitor
4. GPU Testing
3. Prime95
2. GPU
1. Intel Extreme Tuning Utility

Activity III Activity I

Answer Key

Address: Freedom Sports Complex, San Jose, Pili, Camarines Sur

Email: deped.camsur@deped.gov.ph
Website: www.depedcamsur.com
Telephone No: (telefax) 8713340 |4
 SCHOOLS DIVISION OF CAMARINES SUR

LEARNER’S REFERENCE IN COMPUTER SYSTEMS SERVICING NC II

TOPIC: STRESS TESTING THE PC

Reliability engineers often test items under expected stress or even under accelerated
stress to determine the operating life of the item or to determine modes of failure.

The term "stress" may have a more specific meaning in certain industries, such as
material sciences, and therefore stress testing may sometimes have a technical meaning –
one example is in fatigue testing for materials.

Stress testing, in general, should put computer hardware under

exaggerated levels of stress to ensure stability when used in a normal
Hardware environment. These can include extremes of workload, type of task, memory
use, thermal load (heat), clock speed, or voltages. Memory and CPU are two
components that are commonly stress tested in this way.
In software testing, a system stress test refers to tests that put a greater
emphasis on robustness, availability, and error handling under a heavy load,
rather than on what would be considered correct behavior under normal
Software circumstances. In particular, the goals of such tests may be to ensure the
software does not crash in conditions of insufficient computational
resources (such as memory or disk space), unusually high concurrency, or
denial of service attacks.

Best Tools to Stress Test Your PC (CPU, RAM, GPU, System)

To ensure that there are no hidden problems, the most important thing to do after
buying or building a new PC is to stress test the machine for at least 6 hours to ensure the
CPU, RAM and GPU are completely stable. For those who want additional performance by
overclocking, performing stress testing will also help give you an idea of how much thermal
headroom is available as well. If temperatures are far below thresholds, then overclocking
may be an option to improve system performance.
For older systems, it is always recommended to stress test after any sort of PC
upgrades as well. Sometimes it is difficult to detect small issues with newly installed RAM or
how compatible a new motherboard is with the rest of your components until you load it up
and ensure it’s capable of running 100% stable even during periods of heavy load.
System Monitoring
Before stress testing the system, the most important thing to have is some sort of way
to measure temperatures of the components in your system. While some applications such as
AIDA64 or Intel XTU will come with the ability to measure component temperatures, some of
the other benchmarks do not have this ability, which is why it is important to have some sort
of system monitoring software to ensure that your first run of Prime95 or Furmark will not burn
up your brand-new components.

HWMonitor One of the best free tools to monitor PC component temperatures is

(Free) HWMonitor. HWMonitor has a clean, easy to use interface and will provide

Address: Freedom Sports Complex, San Jose, Pili, Camarines Sur

Email: deped.camsur@deped.gov.ph
Website: www.depedcamsur.com
Telephone No: (telefax) 8713340 |5
 real time information such as utilization, temperature, clock speed, and power
usage of the onboard components.
For CPU stress testing, one of the oldest and best free CPU stress
testing utilities is Prime95. Prime95 essentially utilizes the CPU to find
CPU Mersenne prime numbers and in the process, generates a very heavy
Stress workload on the CPU. Generally, an uninterrupted 6 hour run of Prime95
Testing indicates that the CPU is good and will not have issues over its usable
lifetime. However, it’s important to ensure temperatures are kept in a
reasonable range.
If you own an Intel CPU based system, one of the best CPU stress
testing tools comes directly from the company who manufactured your
Intel
processor. Intel’s Processor Diagnostic Tool will verify the processor, its
Processor
operating frequency, test all its onboard functionality, then proceed to stress
Diagnostic
testing it in one of the most intense ways possible. This test can be set to run
Tool (Free)
on a loop and the test can even be set to automatically shut itself down if the
CPU overheats.
AIDA64 is a very comprehensive full system diagnostic utility typically
AIDA64 aimed at engineers, IT professionals, and systems enthusiasts. Among other
(Paid) tools, one of the best tools AIDA64 offers is the System Stability Test which
can stress everything from the CPU to RAM to the GPU.
RAM Stress Testing
Without a doubt, Memtest 86+ is easily the most comprehensive
memory stress testing utility out there, but if you are looking for something a
bit easier to use and more importantly, operates in the Windows OS,
Memtest
MemTest64 is one of the best memory stress testing tools out there. What’s
64 (Free)
great about MemTest64 is that it is extremely easy to use and all that is really
needed to get going is simply to hit the “Begin Test” button and the utility will
proceed testing.
GPU Stress Testing
Furmark is a controversial free GPU stress testing utility as it stresses
the GPU by producing a complicated 3D image and when run for an extended
period, it’s been known to fry some older graphics cards that lacked certain
Furmark
voltage limit protections. These days, these issues are largely gone, but
(Free)
many critics of using Furmark to stress test GPUs claim that because no
game will produce such a complicated image for such a long time, other
methods of stress testing the GPU is far better and less dangerous
Like Unigine Heaven, 3D Mark is best known as a benchmark, but is
also a very good GPU stress test. In the benchmark, 3D Mark uses the GPU
3D Mark to render extremely detailed 3D scenes, placing a stressful but realistic load
(Free/Paid) on the GPU. While the free version of 3D Mark allows users to run one
benchmark at a time, those with the full paid version can also loop the
benchmark indefinitely to ensure full system stability when playing games.
Full System Stress Testing
For those with Intel systems, one of the best free tools to stress test the
Intel CPU, memory and GPU is Intel’s Xtreme Tuning Utility. This utility will allow
Extreme users to select which component to stress test, for how long, and it simply
Tuning does its thing. As Intel XTU is designed for overclocking the CPU, one nice
Utility thing about the utility is that it will give information about the CPU such as
(Free utilization, frequency, temperatures, and whether thermal throttling was
detected during the stress testing.

Address: Freedom Sports Complex, San Jose, Pili, Camarines Sur

Email: deped.camsur@deped.gov.ph
Website: www.depedcamsur.com
Telephone No: (telefax) 8713340 |6