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A few questions...

T

TheSlammer

Junior Member
I have a 1.4 ghz Thunderbird system that is very unstable. In fact, I have to run it at 1.05ghz (10.5x100) to get any sort of stability. My mainboard is a brand new MSI KT3 Ultra Kt-333, with 512 megs of Samsung DDR-333 ram. The case has two fans, one for intake at the front and another in the back; the processor has a cooler master heat sink and thermal grease. However, when I run at 1.4 ghz, the system enters windows and promptly shuts itself down. If I try to use MSI's overclocking utility to push the FSB up to its supposed speed of 133mhz, the system locks up. I have tried TWO seperate 1.4 ghz Tbirds on this system, with similar results. Ditto with the two motherboards (a Kt-133 before this), different ram, different video cards, different cases, different power supplys, and different fans.

That's the situation. Here are my questions:

1) The processor runs at a posted temperature of >60c. Is this too hot? Can anyone with a similar system tell me how hot their chip is running?
2) If it is too hot, why IS it too hot? I have loads of cooling in the case.
3) If heat is not the problem, what could be? I'm all out of ideas. This has been hounding me for the better part of a year and I'm about ready to give up.

Here are my detailed specs:
AMD Tbird 1.4ghz, 133mhz FSB
MSI KT3 Ultra, via kt333 chipset
400 watt power supply
2 case fans, 2 power supply fans, 1 gfx card fan, 1 cpu fan/heatsink
Geforce4 Ti 4400 3d card
Western Digital Caviar 40gb EIDE 7200rpm hdd
Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer sound card

Thats about it. I really hope you can help me!!! Thanks in advance.
 
Both my 1.4 Thunderbirds's run at 48c or less. Check your thermal interface between the heatsink fan and the core. I use electronics parts cleaner to wash my cpu's and then nail polich remover on the HSF to ensure a clean surface, then apply a think even layer of thermal paste, even the Radio Shack brands work well.

BTW - Both systems have intake / outtake fans and the PSU fan, no extra bay coolers or slot coolers required for 48c.

DC

Edit - If you have the same problems on two chips and two boards, check the power supply, it might be pushing too much voltage.
 
Well, I previously had a 230 watt power supply, now I'm bumped up to a 400 watter.

If it is indeed giving too much voltage, how can I remedy the situation?

Any other insight would be appreciated as well.
 
In a perfect world, a 400 watt and a 280 watt should produce the same voltages, they're going to realistically be within tolerances of each other around -.05 ~ + .05. You can run a 565 watt supply without the voltage being any different, what needs to be watched is a bad supply. If you bios supports it, you can monitor the voltages in either the bios CPU setup or hardware monitor programs like Sandra and MBM. The KT3 has a hardware monitor feature in the BIOS, either page one or three I think.

DC

BTW - The only other thing I can figuer that's the same between two boards and chips is the fan. Are you using the retail fan included with the 1.4 T-bird or something else?
 
The board comes with a monitoring and overclocking tool called FuzzyLogic. At the moment, running at 1.05 ghz with a 100mhz bus, the cpu is getting 1.79 volts and is at 60c. The system is perfectly stable at this speed.

The voltage thing is beyond my area of experience -- is 1.79 normal? And if not, does that mean my psu is bad?
 
Quoted from another source:
Begin:
Athlon Thunderbird
Pin-Out: Slot A / Socket A
Core Size: .18-micron
Core Voltage: ~1.75v
Max Safe Voltage: 1.85v
Rated Speeds: 500 - 1400+ MHz
End:

The core voltage is supposed to be 1.7v for the core. 1.79 is almost 1.8, so I'd say it's a little high, but nothing major. You might want to decrease it back down if you can do .10 steppings in your BIOS. I'd suggest getting that as close as possible to 1.7, then change fans.

Outside of that, I'm stumped. The higher rating could be an deficiency such as an inaccurate reading from the monitor chip (A number of A7V-333's suffer a 1+ volt difference in the 12v rail, but they're actually just fine.) It could be a power supply, and it could be dead on, perfectly normal. But having to run your chips at 1.0 (100) just to stay at 60c is just not right, if lowering it doesn't help, definately try a new fan. Wish I could provide you with some better suggestions.

DC
 
The processor runs at a posted temperature of >60c. Is this too hot? Can anyone with a similar system tell me how hot their chip is running?
Click to expand...

My friends 1.4 ran at about 45. Have you tried a different (better) heatsink? According to your post you've basically rebuilt the entire system with different parts and it still didn't work. I'd try replacing the part you have yet to change.
 
You're running hot but I don't think this is really the problem. You can always cool down you cpu for a little while to test if heat is your problem by taking the case off and pointing a house fan on the cpu.

Perhaps the processor itself or the motherboard is bad? Maybe memory? Try running goldmem. Also run try Prime 95 and this cpu heating program: cpu burn-in
 
I'm trying the housefan thing now. I'd prefer to keep the case buttoned up, however...

I've got a Cooler Master fan lying around, tried it before and it didn't make a difference, maybe I'll try it again tomorrow...thanks for the suggestions everyone.

 
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