Before Benchmarking
For highest accuracy,
- Close all programs other than Dacris Benchmarks.
- Open Task Manager and check that CPU usage is always under 20%. If there are spikes in CPU usage over 20%, your test results could be affected. There could be another process (such as a virus scan or installer) running in the background. If so, you should wait until the process has finished executing.
- Do not move the mouse while a 2D video test is in progress. In general, continuous mouse movement should be avoided during tests.
Also, make sure you have configured the hard drive test to actually test the drive that you want to be tested. By default, the primary (C:) drive is tested. You can change this by choosing Tools – Options in the main menu.
Tip: You can set the duration of all benchmark tests. A longer duration leads to greater accuracy. Go to Tools – Options to set the duration.
Running a Benchmark Test
To manually test a single component, you can either click its icon in the toolbar, or go to File – Benchmarks (in the main menu) and select the component from the menu.
To automatically test all components, click the Run All button in the toolbar. Or, go to File – Benchmarks – Run All.
To save results, go to File – Save Results. You must save your results before you can publish them.
Find out more about sharing results and comparing results.
Scheduling Tests
With Dacris Benchmarks, you can also run benchmark tests from the command line. This means you can set up a scheduled task to run all benchmark tests unattended at a time of your choice.
To schedule an unattended test, follow these steps:
- Go to File – Benchmarks – Batch Testing.
- A Notepad window will open up. Select File – Save As and save it to a location of your choice, as a text file.
- Create a new scheduled task in Windows.
- For the scheduled task’s command line, specify the following:
path\bmark.exe “path\file.txt”
(Replace ‘path\file.txt’ with the full path to the text file you saved in step 2)
(Replace ‘path\bmark.exe’ with the full path to bmark.exe – wherever you installed Dacris Benchmarks) - Set the scheduled task to run at whatever time you wish.
By default, the script will run all benchmark tests and then leave Dacris Benchmarks running. You can customize the script by editing it with Notepad and inserting new commands.
