TLDR: This is a tool that will stress both CPU and RAM very hard, without corrupting any OS installation. This is very practical in many situations, but overclocking stability testing is how I mostly use it myself. You can download it from this link, burn it using Rufus in ISO mode
Some notes:
- This requires UEFI to boot. In mid 2025 I do not consider this a problem, but rather a feature
- It will automatically select and run the standard y-cruncher benchmark, using as much RAM as possible
- It is based on Tiny Core Linux 16.0 x86_64
- Most importantly: If the test fails, no data/Windows installation was corrupted since it is a live USB
About the error message that pops up: Due to the statically compiled version of y-cruncher, it will give you message in red text about thread and node affinities. Just press Enter. I consider this a feature, and not a bug. Imagine that a system is overclocked too high and restarts under load:
- If no manual step was needed, the system could likely be stuck in a restart loop, that gives very high thermal cycling/component wear
- Since a manual step is needed, it is certain that there will not be a restart loop
Background: This is a quite extensive modification of a GSAT live USB I found earlier on Reddit, see link here. But in my own experience GSAT does not put anywhere near the needed stress on the system, to find errors. In addition, almost all my systems are UEFI these days.
There are also other options like for instance StresKit, but I see some problems there. For instance, I would need to spend a lot of time just to get a not-so-tech-savvy person to login to that daunting Linux command prompt. So something autostarting with minimal user interaction was required. Also for myself I wanted something that would quickly tell me if my overclock looks stable enough before I boot into Windows and take testing to a higher stress level (RAM think TM5 or Karhu ; CPU think Prime95 or OCCT).
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The first post just shows the end result, and this second post will outline how to get to that result. The intended audience is hence:
- Someone who needs to update the tool
- Someone who is curious and want to learn, maybe with the intention to do something similar themselves
- Someone who simply does not trust a random bootable file from the internet
There are two files from the ISO file that are of special interest
- \boot\grub\grub.cfg ; This is the configuration for GRUB that boots the live USB
- \etc\profile.d\y-cruncher.sh ; This is a start script that checks the available RAM, and then launches y-cruncher accordingly
This live USB verifiably consists of the following three core parts:
- Kernel and root file system: Tiny Core Linux 16.0 x86_64
- GRUB UEFI boot loader: dCore focal x86_64 (also under the Tiny Core Linux umbrella)
- y-cruncher: v0.8.6.9545-static (the more typical dynamically linked version simply does not work on this “slim” Linux system)
Prerequisites to re-produce the root file system
- Download “corepure64.gz”, rename it “corepure64_orig.gz” and put it in /tmp
- Download ycruncher, unpack to just a .tar file, and put it in /tmp
- Extract the file “y-cruncher.sh”, and put it in /tmp
Below are the actual commands that I ran earlier on my fairly standard Linux system. The end result is a significantly larger “corepure64.gz” file, or the root file system. This larger file can then replace the existing one. Warning: This will wipe all files in “/tmp/tempdir”, which is normally not a problem.
sudo -s
cd /tmp/
rm -rf tempdir
mkdir tempdir
cp ./corepure64_orig.gz tempdir
cd tempdir
zcat corepure64_orig.gz | cpio -i -H newc -d
rm etc/motd
cp -a …/y-cruncher.sh etc/profile.d/
chmod a+x etc/profile.d/y-cruncher.sh
tar xvf …/y-cruncher*.tar
cd y-cruncher\ v0.8.6.9545-static/
cp -a * …/usr/local/bin
cd …
rm -rf y-cruncher\ v0.8.6.9545-static/
rm ./corepure64_orig.gz
find | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -2 > …/corepure64.gz
Two files of special interest.zip (861 Bytes)