Athlon XP 1800+ and Heat Question

S

S-Gray

Guest
My mate has just purchased some Computer Parts, here is a list of the spec he got:

athlon xp 1800+
256MB DDR PC2100
Gigabyte GA-7vtxh+

Now his Problem is, that he can smell a "Burning" in his Computer, he checked the CPU Temp. and it said that the Temp was 60degrees. Is this right for an Athlon 1800?

He said he rang a local shpo and they said thats fine, but he doesnt quite trust that judgement, anyone have any views?
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
it isn't "fine" at all. I have the same cpu, but oc'd to 2000+ and it sits between 30c and 40c depending on what I've been doing and for how long.

what kind of cooler is your mate using? has he ever taken it off and reseated it? is he using a 'real' cooling paste?

as to the smell, that might not be the cpu at all. have your mate open up his case and check [and I mean really check heh, as in take apart and look] to see if he can see anything that seems amiss. might turn up something, then again might not. the idea is that there may be a tiny bit of plastic or something jammed against a hot component.

what I had with my new case, and again with my gf4/ti4600 was the 'new component' smell. while doing initial tests that changed to 'hot nc' smell. after two days it went away and all was cool.
 
E

Embattle

Guest
40-50 is standard for a retail HSF and while 60 won't destroy it right away its near the edge...esp when hotter weather comes and it'll hit 70.

You do get some burn in on certain products, like GF4s, which produce a buring smell but I'm sorry to say you friends computer is not at an ideal temp and isn't the case on your mates computer. The other thing to bear in mind is the fact that temps from BIOS etc aren't exactly accurate and thus it could be running even hotter at times.

I have an Athlon 2100+ with a bog standard cooler on it atm and it runs 50-55 full load in the recent hotter temp days. On cooler days it's 45-50 which isn't too bad but I can get it under 40. My computer also has an exhust fan located near the processor...is there one on your friends comp?
 
A

Abysmal

Guest
Ritey im the mate in question here.

Basically ive stripped the case down, and I dont see anything that would be burning, the only thing that may justify that theory is that my motherboard mounts are plastic instead of metal...

Other than that nothing..im hoping that its just cause the components are new. Anyway, 2morrow I will buy a blowhole for the case, and a new 'decent' fan for the CPU. Its not really the heat im worried about, it was the smell, its not too nice!
 
T

throdgrain

Guest
Hmm Im at work at the moment, but what program tells you the temp of your cpu? Cheers :)
 
B

Big G

Guest
I'm gonna have to throw a spanner in the works here.

I've been using an Athlon 1.4 system for over a year now which has run constantly at 55 to 60 odd degrees without any crashes or problems due to heat. I've posted on message boards many times and everyone has told me "woooooah thats way too hot, it'll be fucked soon - my athlon 1.4 runs at 35-45".

I'm happy for these people.

There seems to be a certain hysteria about how hot a CPU is, and although 70+ isn't ideal at all, 60 degrees is within operating temps. I've just fitted 2 x 80mm fans to blow cold air straight onto the CPU/heatsink (which uses a Taisol copper based HSF with arctic silver 3) and the CPU temp now sits at 45.

Also, depending on the mobo, the thermal diode which detects the CPU temp could be very innacurate reporting much higher than it really is. The flip side being that it may be reporting lower than it is.

Try taking the HSF off, cleaning the bottom and the cpu die, re-apply some thermal compound and put it back together.

If the PC isn't crashing and everything is working normal, I wouldn't worry.

Gaz
 
E

Embattle

Guest
Lots of things have operating limits with a wide range but at the end of the day you idealy want it around 50c and below to take into account hot days, load etc.

Oh and as I said originally and BG just stated to you can't trust Temp from BIOS etc.
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
aye, well and true indeed. yet a cool cpu is a happy one, so imo it will stand you well to get it as cold as you can.
 
X

Xavier

Guest
Ok, couple of things here

regardless of what temps people get from their rigs the only threshold AMD require when certifying a CPU cooler is that it gets no hotter than 65C - the safety threshold for that particular CPU is 75C at which point the bios should automatically kick in and either suspend or shut the machine down.

The smell is most likely either oil being rapidly distilled out of the thermal goo on the HSF (some of the pink TIMs do this too) but it could also be the coating that they spray on top of the core at this temp or maybe the GPU - nothing else in a system should get so hot as to create any odours... Sure sometimes you get a smell from a new PCB but that's generally an acrid odour, quite different from 'burning'.

The only true way to read temperature is via an external probe, the BIOS is a guesstimate at best and should never be trusted, some applications like Motherboard Monitor are ok-'ish' but only if it supports the particular probe in use on your board and it's worth having a reference probe to check that the numbers correlate even then.

One of the things we find when testing boards to use for technation is that the bioses always exaggerate the temperature, it seems the manufacturers themselves acknowledge that their solution can't be all that accurate and always put a little margin in to be safe - probes are generally 5C more than the real core temp but we've had a couple that were over 15C out. Only once was a board underestimating the temperature and this was put down to a wrongly rated probe being fitted.

Don't forget even then that the probe that reads the temp of a cpu like an athlon XP is at the bottom of the chip while the hotspot is at the centermost of the core... not the best of implementations I know but AMD opted against an on-die temp probe like the P4's and only a few HSF manufacturers make cpu fansinks with a probe located on top of the chips hotspot...

A blowhole is a good idea but I would try upgrading to a decent fansink first... noisy doesn't necessarily equal cool - you could get away with as little as an arkua hsf or go into the copper options and get an SK6 or Alpha PAL 8045 - either way you won't need a pokey fan on either, a papst or sunon will do the job without disturbing peoples sleep.

Although 65C is the maximum AMD will pass you really do want to get that temp around 40C if poss and this also applies to BigG - the reason AMD have this temp threshold isn't because the chip burns at 70C or even 85-90C (in fact you need almost 100C for a chip to pop but that isn't the point) - it's been proven that below 50C there is a much lower overall resistance in the die and that the chip isn't only more power-efficient at this temp but also it runs marginally better (less errors due to FPU accuracy etc etc) - you could probably ditch those blowholes BigG in favour of a decent cooler, the Taisoi is adequate for meeting the AMD bar but even the low end akachi heat pipe arkuas will give far better temperatures with no blowhole noise...

One question I have is - did the CPU come with a fansink or is Doenutz using a HSF from an old athlon rig? If it was a freebie/old unit then you can't really complain about the temp but if you paid more than £10 for it I'd be bitchin for a refund and toddling off to get yourself a decent (and preferrably quiet) cooling solution.

Xav
 
B

Big G

Guest
I beg to differ again, purely of my own experience.

If it's FPU accuracy we're talking about, my PC has always scored better than average with benchmarks and i've been 120% satisfied with it.

The only reason i brought blowholes into it (which are virtually silent) was to bring cool air over the HSF/chipset/mem which has helped a tremendous ammount since i have a full tower case and a lot of air has to be shifted to keep the temperature down. My room's ambient is very warm so getting cool air in is a problem.

I understand that people want their CPU cool, but with over a years experience and testing of my own CPU at "way too fucking hot" levels, it's never had any performance problems at all.

Gaz
 
X

Xavier

Guest
Differ if you will but I've seen this demonstrated in AMD's own laboratories on both athlon XP and the new thoroughbred core which is why when they send us samples the coolers supplied (which we seldom use) are uprated especially for AMD.

Because of the increase in resistance rounding errors increase; as a result calculations are re-run because of the slightly increased failure rate of the branch prediction... something which shows a stepped reduction below 43C iirc.
 
E

Embattle

Guest
Temp 2 is most probably the CPU and Temp 1 is the case with Temp 3 being....well not too sure ;)
 
E

Embattle

Guest
That normally temp1 reading...its generally crap ;)
 
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throdgrain

Guest
My motherboard is an Asus A7V333.
Btw my old P3 used to read 70 deg according to one program I downloaded, yet its still working perfectly 18 months later ...:)
 
S

S-Gray

Guest
My CPU Temp is 33c (Readings from "Asus Probe 2").

Also, on a note of CPU Stuff, my Processor is a P3 866, and when its goin thru Post-Boot, it says that, but i got this Intel Pentium Processor Program, that says its "Overclocked" and is a P3 900.

/confused
 
X

Xavier

Guest
just sounds like the symptoms of running the processor ID app on a chip that wasn't available at the time of the apps release - try a new one :)
 
S

S-Gray

Guest
lol on *another* note of CPU/Mobo Temps, i mentioned this "Asus Probe 2" earlier in the Thread, well, while its running in the background, it shows the Temp Graph, now on the CPU one, the CPU Temp is normal, saying its 30c, but occasionally, this Probe pops up, minimizing my game etc, and shows that the Temp hits over 100c.

Heres a Screenie of it:

CPU%20Temp.jpg
 
E

Embattle

Guest
If it had hit 100c you would never see it again since thats one fried chip ;)
 
X

Xavier

Guest
accurate temp readings rely on a stable input voltage - there's no way the cpu could spike at 100C like that but if the 5V rail wasn't quite up to whack it could throw the calibration out... dare I ask if that's an enermax PSU?

either way - do you have any other system problems as it looks like your PSU aint quite pokey enough for the job!
 
H

Happy Go Lucky

Guest
Got a Duron 850 with a coolermaster 1.2ghz rated fan.
I have 2 case fans at the front and back.


It registers 38c , increases to 39c when the cpu is being used. and 27c for the case temp.

:rolleyes:
 
X

Xavier

Guest
heh and?

half the onchip cache = less transistors = less heat

one of the hottest bits of a cpu IS the cache after all.
 
H

Happy Go Lucky

Guest
Thanks Zav, Just checking if it was respectable :)

It'll be much hotter then, when I upgrade it to a 1.4 Athlon :/
 
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