Barton 2500+ Overheating--Help

[Froid64]

I need to bounce something off all you bright people. I am putting together a system for a friend. I purchased the following: Gigabyte GA-7N400-L motherboard (refurbished), AMD Barton 2500+ processor, 512MB of Muskin PC3200 memory (1 stick), & a Thermaltake Silent Power 420W power supply. My friend had a case, harddrive, and CDRW that we are reusing.

HERE IS THE PROBLEM: I put the system together and I was having problems detecting the proper CPU and it took forever to autodetect the IDE devices. I could not get it to boot to the CD-ROM. I went into the BIOS and loaded optimized defaults and that solved the CPU detection. It now detects the Barton 2500+. I was unable to boot from CD and the system was acting unstable. I checked the CPU temp and it was at 65C. I looked over the retail CPU fan & heatsink and all seemed fine. So, I pulled the heatsink, cleaned everthing up, reapplied a thin coat of thermal paste, and remounted the heatsink/fan. No luck...the system seems to be quick to the Bios after it sits for a while, but quickly heats up and becomes unstable.

I have installed many AMD's with retail heatsink/fan without any problems. Since the motherboard is refurbished, I have a short time to get an RMA. Any ideas on what the problem might be? I am about the RMA the motherboard and see how the rest of my stuff works with a new mobo.

Help... I would like to thank-you in advance for providing me your opinions.

 

[Froid64]

O.K. here is an update... I discovered that the CD-ROM drive was bad and so I am using a different CD Rom drive and am able to begin loading WinXP.

I am still concerned about the CPU Temp. What is a normal range? AMD's website shows a high-end temp of 80-94C depending on the model of Barton 2500 chip. This system is running close to 70C all the time. This seems high to me!

Thoughts?

 

[SilentAssassin]

hmmm that's strange... I'm not familiar with that mobo but I do know that my cousins Barton 2500+ ran at about 42c idle/52c load on the retail heatsink. Hows the heatsink feel when you touch it? If the mobo is reading the temps correctly then that temp is definatly too high.

 

[Anubis]

is teh heat sink seated correctly? re seat it and make sure you apply some thermal greese, AS5 or whatever, that temp seems to high for stock settings even with the stock cooler

 

[Froid64]

Thank-you for the input.

First of all, I did check & reset the heat sink. The design is such that you can only set the heatsink on the cpu one way. If you try to turn it 180 degrees, the heatsink does not sit properly on the socket. Prior to the post, I removed the heat sink, cleaned the cpu & heatsink, applied a new thin layer of thermal paste, and installed the heat sink.

Now for the heat sink touch test. I have booted the PC to the Bios and the Health Monitor tells me that the CPU Temp has reached 70C - Case temp is 32C - CPU Fan Speed is 3900rpm - System Fan is 2300rpm. When I touch the heatsink it feels slightly warm. I can comfortably hold my hand on the heat sink.

Is there any way I can get a cpu temp reading another way?

 

[dennisjai215]

here is a link to motherboard monitor 5

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: Froid64
I can comfortably hold my hand on the heat sink.

honestly then the reading is just off.. if the CPU was that hot, the heatsink gets pretty toasty.. i know cause I've felt that before, in the 60-70 degree temp range.