Tormod Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 I am using an AMD 2500+ CPU (Barton core) which is overclocked by setting the FSB to 200 and upping the multiplier to 11. It now identifies as an AMD 3200+, which has been working fine for about a year. However, I recently replaced my RAM. I took out 3xPC2700 256MB TwinMos chips, and installed 2xPC3200 1GB Crucial chips. The new RAM runs at 400Mhz rather than 333. Suddenly the temperature of my PC lies in the high 60s (Celcius), and the PC is becoming unstable. Today I took off the heatsink (a zalman passive heatsink with a fan blowing over it), cleaned it and the CPU chip and replaced the cooler paste with some Arctic Alumina compound. I tweaked the fans a bit...but the temperature is now at an even 60 at normal load. High loads tend to cause BSOD's or at least program crashes. I tried to downclock everything again but the temps were still high. Any ideas what I may be doing wrong? Hope I haven't fried my CPU... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffy Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 Ram and CPUs are all just transistors packed on a chip. Density and speed both increase heat dissipation. I'm not a hardware gal, (I just drive em! I don't know what makes em work!) but I'd say the heat problem was the RAM boards! I know I've burned my self touching the edges, and I have a healthy respect for how much heat the machines put out (I don't use a heater in the winter at all...just leave the machines running...). I'd do some research on those boards and see if they're bad, or just put anothe fan in the machine. Just following your story line makes it sound like there's nothing to point the finger at overclocking your cpu...sounds like amd builds one chip and then puts a different speed label on it to me.... :hihi: Cheers,Buffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxian Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 i had a similar experience save for the year of good performance. it was unstable from word go on a very incremental overclock but why overclock? why not stick with pentium 4 that still runs even when hot and not worry about clock speeds? what apps are you running that require the extra power? also for cooling have you considered a chimney mod? one of the most drastic mods i've done, a huge 120mm fan pumping hot ram cpu and gpu air up and out, with a fan under the hdds blowing cool air into the case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted August 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 Thanks both. I am overclocking this particular CPU simply because I can - I bought it because I'd get 3200+ performance out of a 2500+ chip... But yes, the RAM chips may be the culprits here. Too bad I can't run the PC with only one of them...hm...maybe I need to find some memory test software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted August 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 Just FYI - the processor does manage the overclocking very well. The 2500+ is AFAIK simply a 3200+ that has not been guaranteed to run at full speed. http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=34436 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eclogite Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 Because your query reminded me of the dim distance past when I used to know a little about hardware, I googled "2xPC3200 1GB Crucial".It only turned up one link, for a tech forum, but buried within quite a long thread were several references to operating temperatures of the Barton cpu. There might be some leads there:http://forum.grid.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=15813&view=previous&sid=1adceb5ed49fe32369052677f15371c0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleAl Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 You need serious heatsinking, ventillation, and a cool ambient temperature if you are overclocking. Heat dissipation rises sharply with voltage and clock rate. Take off the case and blow on the hot spots with added fans (not running from the box's power supply). Also verify that everything running flat out sums to not more than 90% of power supply rating. Power supply performance degrades with increasing temperature - doom feeds on itself. I'm running an Athlon 64 FX-55 with 2 GB of DRAM at 100% CPU continuously (Win-XP, High priority) for an iterative scientific program. This run will generate 909 points on a graph in 77 hours. In winter I can get the room down to 10 C and the CPU sits at 40 C (SpeedFan). http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php Right now the room is 23 C and the CPU is 52 C. The box has some serious fans. Adding a large external muffin fan (120 V; not from the box power supply) to the front intake, side CPU window, or rear exhaust does not change temps throughout the box by more than a degree or two. The limiting factor is then heat conduction through the chips themselves. More air changes nothing - it must be cooler air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nkt Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 Have you got a RAM cooler unit? It's a small aluminium plate wth a little fan on it to spread the heat out across the RAM chips. Also, I take it the CPU temp is suddenly 60 degrees, rather than the case temp? Try swapping the RAM back, then check the temps again, and see what the real increase is. Oods are, if it is suddenly getting that much hotter, it is because the Ram bus is now running at 400 not 333, and so when you multiply that by 11 you are overclocking by 11 times 66 cycles more than you were before. However, your CPU probably isn't doing that... It might be your north bridge is getting really hot, and causing issues. After all, most CPUs don't care until they reach 80 degrees, so it is likely something else is giving the errors first. Run the computer, and run an IR thermometer over it, and work out where the hotspots are. I bet it isn't actually the CPU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted August 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 Because your query reminded me of the dim distance past when I used to know a little about hardware, I googled "2xPC3200 1GB Crucial".It only turned up one link, for a tech forum, but buried within quite a long thread were several references to operating temperatures of the Barton cpu. There might be some leads there:http://forum.grid.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=15813&view=previous&sid=1adceb5ed49fe32369052677f15371c0 Great link. I have the exact motherboard (ASUS A7N8X Deluxe) of which the following is said: Memory (be very careful here). PC2700 or PC3200 memory with 3ns CAS latency will NOT run reliably on these motherboards. ...and my RAM chips run at 3ns CAS when FSB is 400. I'll try to set my FSB to 166 which would give me a 2.5ns CAS and see if that helps any. I'll also try to put my stock AMD cooler back on just to see what the temperature difference is. Thanks to all for your valuable input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted August 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 Also, I take it the CPU temp is suddenly 60 degrees, rather than the case temp? Try swapping the RAM back, then check the temps again, and see what the real increase is. Oods are, if it is suddenly getting that much hotter, it is because the Ram bus is now running at 400 not 333, and so when you multiply that by 11 you are overclocking by 11 times 66 cycles more than you were before. Correct! Case temp is less than 50 degrees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted August 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 Test 1: Setting the FSB to 166 and upping the multiplier to 12.5 gives me an Athlon 2800+ (2.09Ghz) and a RAM speed of 333 with a 2.5ns CAS. The CPU diode reports 60-62 C while the CPU socket reports 45 C. Will let this sit for a while and see if I have any further problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted August 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 PC definitely performs better at 166Mhz FSB... But it seems the motherboard monitor program I'm using is not very reliable (MBM)...or something is not right. I downloaded ASUS Probe and it shows a healthy 45 C for my CPU and 25 for my motherboard I wonder if that's simply the CPU socket temp and not the actual chip temp...because the MBM is displaying the EXACT same values for motherboard and CPU socket. But ASUS Probe doesn't give a chip diode readout value. So maybe my temperature woes are misguided - it may be the RAM speed that has been the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 So why exactly have you not considered liquid cooling? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erasmus00 Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 So why exactly have you not considered liquid cooling? I find that thermoelectric (peltier) cooling with a liquid heat sink works quite well. -Will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted August 23, 2005 Report Share Posted August 23, 2005 i mean figuring out the problem is fine, but you can also follow the philosophy, if it runs hotter, cool it better no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted August 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2005 i mean figuring out the problem is fine, but you can also follow the philosophy, if it runs hotter, cool it better no? I am cooling it better. It turned out that it was an incompatibility between my motherboard and the RAM latency. Anyway watercooling is not something I have the money or time to get into... :hihi: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxian Posted August 24, 2005 Report Share Posted August 24, 2005 i'm wondering if AMD will ever make a 1066 fsb chip with 2megs of L2 cache (dual core) then they could properly compete with intel. and points for buffy for pointing to the ram as the culprit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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