CPU problem

[Grumper]

I purchased a "used" Athlon XP 1700+ just to have around as a spare. The board I tried it in is a working board with an Athlon XP 1800+. When I fired the 1700 up all hell let loose it sounded like a London Cops car--a warble of a sort but rather loud, it just kept up , no post at all so I shut it down, put the 1800 back in and everything is working OK.

Now when I got the 1700 it was shipped in a soft envlope and 3 pins were bent I straightened the pins and it fit in the AMD 462 socket without any real problem. The only other thing I did was when I put the heatsink/fan on the 1700 I did not "clamp it down" I just placed it on thr 1700.

Is it a bad CPU [ the guy said it was perfect] must you put full pressure on the CPU with the HS/FAN --of once pins are bent its all over-- it did fit fine in the 462 and I did put the lever all the way down.

Thanks Paul

[david eaton]

What you were getting was the overheat warning. The H/S fan MUST be clamped down, with either a new thermal pad, or thermal grease before appliying power. An Athlon XP can go from cold to extra crispy in under ten seconds!

[Grumper]

Right on brother ---clamed it down and like the guys said "its perfect" now I have to Email him and tell him it OK ---that dont forgive the 3 bent pins, and the crappy packaging. HELLO----I just had a BSOD "hardware failure" the cpu is running at 44 C and the system is at 33 C do you thinK I damaged the CPU prior ??? Ill get out of BIOS and see, 1 minute. well its been running OK for about 1 hour ---could be that BSOD was left over from the 1st mess up, it all seems OK.

Thanks alot David

[david eaton]

44c is not too bad for an athlonXP, but if you can get it down a few more degrees it will help. Glad you got it going tho' .

[jlreich]

Yeah that's not bad for an Athlon XP. I have a 2400+ that runs in the low 50's and has been for 5 years. I have installed a new HSF and reapplied Arctic silver but it doesn't make a difference. I think that's just where it likes to run. :p

[Grumper]

I really cleaned up the CPU Athlon 1700+ applied a fresh thin coat of Artic Silver #5 , removed the stock crap from the bottom of the heatsink, took a fine peice of emoty paper and with a lot of circular motions I smoothed out the bottom of the H/S but it all back together and my heat reading now is 39 degrees Cent. ---I guess when I screwed up before it did not affect the CPU

[Grumper]

When I just run the CMOS portion of setup and with no drives or HDD attached just the keyboard and monitor, I get a reading 37C -- 98 F . That is with the side off the case.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Supposedly those Athlon's of that era ran a bit hot and anything under 40 degrees Celcius should be acceptable. You could tweak it a bit more but you're already in a safe working zone. Any more would be like changing to a lower thermostat in your car just because you want to.

The Emery paper is what scares me! 3M Wet or Dry (with water) sandpaper on glass or other extremely flat surfaces is what would be needed to get your CPU much lower at this point. The old Black and Decker belt sander isn't going to make things any better than you have them now. ;)

[Grumper]

Prior to using the emory paper ,the bottom of the stock heatsink was really rough, your finger nail would bounce over the ridges. The" plumbers" emory paper improved a really poor heatsink. I will try the 3M paper wet [ I have some] I will post the results later.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

There's a post around here with a comment by me to others here about being 'anal' in how far one should go about sanding a heatsink.

I use 240 grit then 400 and up to 600, sometimes 800 but others go beyond with 1000 grit or finer. By that point you are looking at a mirror.