8k3a+ causing overheating????

[Technican]

hi:

here's the deal. just got new epox 8k3a+ from newegg with retail athlon xp1700+. I removed the heat pad from the heatsink and followed artic silvers instructions on applying artic silver II. My temp readings start at 42c and max out at 63c. Windows xp freezes after 2 minutes. I am getting these temps from the epox readings at post.

I was using an enlight 300 watt power supply so I changed it to an enermax 340 watt. same results. I then put on a heatsink and fan from a retail athlon 2000 on the 1700+ with artic and same results. I then put the athlon 2000 in the mobo and as I write this the temp is up to 62c at idle (i hit pause button on kb to monitor the temp). I have used artic silver exclusively about 12 times before on other mobos and never had a problem. I also updated the bios to the 6/19/02 which is the latest. Lastly, I remember I used the athlon 2000 on a Gigabyte ga-7vrxp which I had to return to newegg for a different reason. As I recall the temperature was not an issue so I know the processors/heatsinks are fine.

While you may suggest other heatsinks fan combos I appreciate that. This mobo will be used just for surfing the net and will not be overclocked. Although the retail heatsink/fan is NOT the best, it has to do better than this!! My questions>>> Can a mobo be responsible for causing the high temps? lets say the readings are wrong. then why does windows freeze up? how can it work in the gigabyte but not the epox?...it seems that the cpu is definitely running hot in this mobo and not the Gigabyte. thanks...

 

[mechBgon]

The 8K3A boards are the first on the market to give the user access to the on-core temperature diode built into the Palomino- and Thoroughbred-family CPUs. Your CPU has always run about this hot, EPoX is just the first company to let you see it, instead of estimating the temperature using an external thermistor.

I have an Asus A7V333 which goes halfway... it monitors the CPU diode for overheat, but uses a socket thermistor for BIOS and Asus Probe/Motherboard Monitor temps. But yours is the real deal. If the temp exceeds 70-75C then it's time to do something.

Also, is your case ventilation reasonably good? At least one auxiliary rear exhaust fan?

 

[Insane3D]

I would tend to believe it's something other than the temperature of the CPU causing problems. If the diode is reading 63C max, that is actually very good...the XP cores are speced to run up to 95C, so you are well within the normal operating range.