Unfortunately, PC hardware can fail sooner or later, and since a PC is made up of quite a few different hardware components, it is often difficult to diagnose what the problem is, or which component is failing. Fortunately, there are several software solutions that can help us a lot with this, and today we are going to go into detail about how to use one of the most popular: OCCT.
OCCT is a free program that you can download from its website, although logically it has a paid version that is much more advanced and with more options, but in general terms for personal use, the free version is enough (for example, we have a version professional with a perpetual license because we use this software in our analyzes, but that is another topic).
General considerations when using OCCT
OCCT is a monitoring and diagnostic software, and the diagnosis is made through what is known as torture testing. This means that it will put our hardware to the maximum of its possibilities, stressing it to the limit, and if the PC has any severe problem You could end up leaving some component unusable. It shouldn’t happen, but the possibility exists and you should take it into account. If you decide to use OCCT to diagnose PC problems, do it at your own risk.
In addition to torture tests, OCCT also offers other types of functions, such as a benchmark whose result can be uploaded to its database to compare it with other equipment, what they call “Stability Certificate” which consists of leaving the system to maximum for long periods of time to ensure that it is completely stable, another section to simply monitor the system, and another section with technical information about our hardware.
We are going to focus on the options that this software gives us to diagnose problems in the system through torture tests, so let’s get to it.
How to diagnose PC problems with OCCT
In this case, the section that interests us is “Stability Test”, in the menu on the left. Here you can see that there are several sections:
- CPU + RAM: This test will max out both the processor and memory, and is ideal if you have overclocked and your system is unstable to verify that, indeed, the problem comes from here. It is advisable to leave the settings at default, but we would recommend changing the duration (it is in a drop-down menu just above where it says CPU + RAM) to 30 minutes.
- CPU: This test is like the previous one but will only put a load on the processor.
- Linpack: This test is also for the processor, but using the veteran Linkpak benchmark, which makes very intensive use of floating point operations. It is not currently used much on home PCs, and not really used to diagnose PC problems either.
- Memory: As its name suggests, it is to maximize the RAM memory. We will have to select the amount of memory to use (the ideal is to mark 100% or the maximum that allows you (it is usually approximately 95%, because part of the memory is being used by the system), if you suspect that the problem on your PC may come from the RAM) and have it running for between 30 and 60 minutes.
- 3D Standard / 3D Adaptive: The following two tests are for the graphics card, but specifically for the GPU. It will turn the GPU to maximum to see if artifacts appear, if it gets too hot or if it causes any problems. Recommended to have it for at least 10-15 minutes.
- VRAM: As the name suggests, this test will max out your graphics memory. Here it is also advisable to set it to at least 30 minutes in duration and select 100% of the memory, or the maximum that is allowed.
- Power: This is, for us, the most important and interesting test. It will max out the processor, graphics card, RAM and VRAM, making the PC max out in every way, showing you the maximum consumption. This test is ideal if you think there may be problems with the power supply.
- Monitoring only: Basically the only thing it does is monitor the system and it is designed so that you leave it in the background while you run another benchmark or a game. It’s very interesting when you have problems on your PC and you don’t know where they come from, because this way you can try to reproduce the problem (for example, a game crashes on its own) and then go to monitoring to see if there is a problem. voltage that has gone out of control, or a temperature that is too high, for example.
- Combined: Here, as its name suggests, you can combine the tests you want from all of the above (except the Power test, which already involves all of them).
At the end of the tests, a report will appear like the one you can see above this paragraph showing various graphs that contain information about voltages and temperatures, showing maximums, minimums and averages. With this data in hand, you will be able to draw your own conclusions to see what is wrong with your PC.
