Should a Surface Pro be able to run Prime95 without crashing?

Question

I bought my wife a Surface Pro (512GB SSD / 16GB RAM / i7) for Christmas last year. She indicated it was a bit unstable at times, so I ran Prime95 to evaluate hardware stability (https://www.mersenne.org/download/).  Prime95 caused the machine to crash on two separate occasions, each within an hour of starting it. I had the machine exchanged, and just received the replacement. The replacement crashed yesterday running Prime95 within about 5 hours.

The CPU throttles like crazy under the load, but my expectation is that it should not crash. Would you expect it to crash, or throttle but remain functional while running Prime95? Am I being too demanding by expecting it not to crash?  Should I exchange it again?

Answer 1

Hi Matt,

Upon checking, the last update from the developer was way-back last 2016. Since you mentioned that you are still experiencing the same issue on the replacement unit, you might need to contact the developer of the app to check if there's a new update, or you can post your query to MSDN forums.

Let us know if you need anything else.

Regards.

Answer 2

Hello,

Thank you for your response, though I'm a bit confused.  The application I'm describing is available for download here:

https://www.mersenne.org/download/

I should have mentioned the link in the original post.  The latest version is:

Windows: 64-bit    29.4b8    2018-02-09    6.1MB    p95v294b8.win64.zip

This version is only a month old.  People do indeed actively maintain it :)  Unfortunately, running it seems to crash the machine.  The cursor freezes, ctrl-alt-delete does not work, and the only recourse is to cycle the power.  It's a standard Windows application, and does not install any fancy device drivers or other low-level components.  It does not even require "administrator" permission to run, but doing so nevertheless crashes the machine, which seems unacceptable.  Do you have any recommendations?

Thanks and regards,

Matt

Answer 3

Thanks for the update.

It is possible that what you have is a new release, we are just basing it from the article that we found on this link. You may also want to try running the application in compatibility mode even if its new. If the issue persists, we recommend posting your query on MSDN forums.

Feel free to post back if you have any other concerns.

Answer 4

Hello,

Thank you for your reply.  A couple points:

• I've managed to reproduce the problem with Prime95 easily by configuring it to use 4GB RAM.  That configuration leaves more than 5GB free memory, which is sufficient for normal operation.  The replacement machine crashed within a half hour of starting this configuration, in the same way.  The mouse/display were unresponsive, and ctrl-alt-delete did not work.  The machine also was not responsive over the network -- not pingable, and its file shares were inaccessible.  After restarting, the machine was again fine.  Given how easily I can trigger the crash, I suspect this machine is also faulty, but have trouble believing I've received two bad units in a row.
• I'd be happy to re-post to the MSDN site; however, it's unclear what category is appropriate for this question.  My question is not really related to software development.  Can you have a look at the "new thread" page on MSDN, and let me know what category is appropriate?

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/newthread

I accessed the link above by first navigating to the link in your post, and then choosing the "Ask a Question" button in the upper left.

Thanks and regards,

Matt