Tools to extensively test CPU/Disk on Linux?

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Damo

Active Member
Sep 7, 2022
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I am planning on running MemTest86 to fully test memory and run a long iperf to test the network but how do you run a long 12 hour+ test on CPU? Also I would want something to fully test a NVMe disk too possibly fully fill it.

If you suggest any other tools for network/RAM too let me know. I just don't want any quick tests.
 

Stephan

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2017
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Germany
For disks just use shred -vzn1 /dev/... to write random garbage then zeros to the card, then do a blkdiscard, then use nvme tool under Linux to read out smart log to see if any errors happened. For HDD a smartctl offline long test (many tens of minutes to many hours depending how large it is) would be appropriate.

For CPU board and RAM I always recommend Passmark's Memtest, because it will also show ECC RAM errors from the controller, not just plain RAM errors.

For stability, establish 50% of RAM as swap and then use "nice stress-ng --vm $(nproc) --vm-bytes 86% --vm-keep --vm-populate --vm-madvise willneed --verify -v -t 4h --tz --perf" (see my post https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/ram-error.36932/#post-341921) to torture the system. If you have ECC RAM, start rasdaemon to get reports of errors into system log.

Finally I have observed that compiling the Linux kernel on all cores+HT cores (24C/48T -> -j48) will produce 10-50 watts more load than stress-ng alone. So you can do that as a final step to see if your power stages on the board hold up or blow up.
 

acquacow

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2017
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stress your storage with fio, and stress CPU with something like linpack...
 

Glock24

Active Member
May 13, 2019
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If you want to check for drive errors you can use the badblocks command:

#badblocks -svw

Note: this will destroy the drive's content.