PassMark Newsletter Issue #4
Jul 2003
New Products
In
the past few months, PassMark has developed one new shareware, and two
new freeware products.
TestLog is an integrated test case management software
solution. It provides a tool for software test teams to create and update
effective test plans and test cases. TestLog places a large emphasis on
test case requirements management, as inefficiencies in this area are
among the most serious causes of slippages, setbacks and even failures
in the software product development life cycle. It encourages a structured
approach to the use of test plans and reports on the current progress
and status of these plans. TestLog has been designed with versitality
in mind and should plug seamlessly any testing methodology or process
across a variety of industries.
To learn more about TestLog, see http://www.testlog.com
DiskCheckup is a freeware application, which allows
the user to monitor the SMART attributes of a particular hard disk drive.
It also reports some information about the drive, such as the drive Model
number and the Firmware rev. SMART offers a method of estimating the long
term health a drive.
Visit the DiskChekup page to
learn more.
Sleeper is a small, freeware utility program designed
to test the ability of PC systems to enter and recover from sleep and
hibernation. It has been designed to work with PassMark BurnInTest but can also work with 3rd party applications.
Visit the Sleeper page to learn
more.
Upgrades
BurnInTest 3.2 is now available and of note are the following new features...
- Additional error codes for the parallel port test
- Added checking of SMART disk parameters and option of logging SMART details such as power on hours, drive temperature, drive serial number and model number.
- Added two new options in the 2D Graphics test which enable direct writing, reading and verifying of video memory. Local graphics adapter memory only, or all video memory can be tested.
- Updated CPU detection routine for correct detection of L2 cache in new CPUs.
- Fixed up problem with the display of the CPU serial number for PIII machines.
- BurnInTest 3.2 is a free upgrade for licensed users of versions 3.0 and 3.1.
BurnInTest 3.2 can be found here.
Benchmarking
There are now over 1600 PerformanceTest 4.0 baseline files available for download from our website. Note that these are licensed baselines and that they can only be viewed in the full version of PerformanceTest 4.0. Visit our page with all baseline archives here.
We've updated our CPU Review pages, where we compare Intel and AMD processor results up to and including the Pentium 4 3.2Ghz and the Athlon 3000+
What's in the Pipeline?
One of our most popular products, since its introduction about 12 months
ago, has been our USB loopback plug.
We've received many requests for a similar device and a corresponding
test for USB 2.0. We are pleased to report that development of our USB
2.0 loopback plugs is nearing completion and the plugs are targetted for
release alongside BurnInTest 4.0. BurnInTest 4.0 will contain, amongst
other new features, a USB 2.0 loopback and benchmark test, a Video playback
test (MPG and/or AVI) and a CD-RW test for use with CD burners.
USB 2.0 loopback plugs and BurnInTest 4.0 should be available in the Sept/Oct
timeframe.
Hints and Tips
Here are a few hints and tips that have come to our attention over the last 12 months or so.
BurnInTest
- Random errors when running the Disk test, may be caused by bad RAM. RAM is used a lot during lot during the disk test for caching and buffering, thus a RAM fault could look like a disk fault. Ensure you have the correct type of RAM for your FSB speed.
- We have found that in the newly released Windows 2003 server, (and
.NET server) all video card acceleration is turned off by default. In
BurnInTest you'll see the error, '3D Graphics test : Error initializing
Direct-X device'
You need to manually turn it back on...
1. Start the Display applet in Control Panel (go to Start, Control Panel, then click Display).
2. From the General tab, click Advanced, then select the Troubleshoot tab.
3. Move the "Hardware acceleration" pointer to Full.
PerformanceTest
- Many new mobile CPUs designed to work in laptops have power saving features, which lower their clock speed to conserve power. We've had some reports of PerformanceTest reporting lower clock speeds on these CPUs when battery operated, rather than mains operated.
- We have had many questions regarding the difference between NTFS and FAT32 disk test results. Just to note that disks formatted with larger clusters and with FAT32 tend to get better results with this test. Cluster sizes of 16KB should be optimal for this test, becuase this is the size of the read and write operations. The result can also depend on the size of the disk cache, DMA settings, the position of the test file on the disk, motherboard device drivers being used and the interface speed (e.g. ATA-100).