Hi. I've been using a K7SEM motherboard for going on two and a half months. Actually, I've already went through three of them for various reasons -- initally I had a power supply, which was inadequete fry the whole system; luckily everything got replaced free of charge.

2nd board died about a week later, not sure what happened, stopped getting video, took the board back, and it was replaced.

3rd board died last night; similar problem, no video. Was watching a divx, and the system completely locked up. I rebooted, and got no video whatsoever.

System specs are as follows:

1.4 Thunderbird
40 GB WDD
40 GB Samsung
CDRW 20X
CDROM
Floppy
640 MB Sdram
400W Antec Power Supply


It has/had been locking up and acting odd for about the last week. I'm not too sure what is causing this, but I am hoping someone can help me out.

Also the system runs at bout 46C for the motherboard and about 51-52C for the CPU [when I'm not doing anything], which to me seems fairly crappy.

I had been using an Antec CPU cooler [approved up to 1.6GHz], and still has been running that hot. I am now using the CPU fan that came with the Boxed CPU and its still running around the same range [swapped them out to see if that was a factor]. I'm using the regular old crappy silicon [white crap] on the CPU, as I'm not all too "technically enclined" when it comes to all the different applicatory "heat conductive" stuff you're supposed to use.

I'm hoping someone can give me any ideas as to if it could be this board altogether, or what. I've also gotten a few errors on reboot something about IRQ_IS_LESS something [I'm running Windows XP] -- I have been running it for a little over a month and had no problems, but it seems when this thing wants to act up, it acts up like an SOB.

Thanks!

Also the system runs at bout 46C for the motherboard and about 51-52C for the CPU [when I'm not doing anything], which to me seems fairly crappy. thats about normal for a thunderbird. could go a little cooler but not much

I'm using the regular old crappy silicon [white crap] on the CPU, Not recomended use Thermal Tape as far as a fan use a volcano.


I just wanted to put my two cents in here I have to go cook dinner I'm sure someone will be along soon to help you more.



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Treading,Troden,Trails
HERE (http://www.davematthewsband.com)

Are you sure you don't have a RAM problem? Is it all the same brand? What brand is it? What size sticks and in which order of loading?

52C isn't in the critical stage for a 1.4. AMD finally stated that anything below 65C is fair game. For a long time AMD had a ceiling of 72C.

As for the Thermal Paste Arctic Silver is the only way to go. And a thin layer at that, only on the chip-die. IMHO I don't prefer to use the thermal pad. But it has to be taken off with a thumb nail prior to using a thermal paste. Using both at once is a no-no.

The 1.4 can be a bear sometimes about which BIOS it likes to play with. And the very latest version isn't always the one that works best.

Are all your drivers XP compatable?

Luck.

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......Indecision may or may not be my problem......
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