Did I mess up my golden orb?

[slpaulson]

Yesterday when I installed my new crucial -7e ram I must have accidently unplugged the fan on my g-orb and I booted up with it unplugged. After a few minutes of rc-5 and quake3 I decided to have a peek at the inside of the case before I put it all back together. When I noticed the fan wasn't on I of coarse turned off my computer. I decided to just plug the fan back in and run as normal. But I noticed that after about 20 minutes of running quake3 I would just get a hard lockup with the last sound playing over like a broken record. After it locked up I turned off my computer and took off the g-orb to see if I messed up the heatsink grease or something. Well I noticed that in a couple of spots on the edge of where the cpu would be touching the heatsink it looked as if it was scratched. Putting on new thermal compound did not work. Sandra says my cpu runs 46c with a full load (which I don't think is the true temp) where it used to be about 41c or so. Do you think that the roughed up spots on the g-orb could be causing my sudden lockups? Should I try lapping the heatsink down?
I am running a 550e previously ran at 825mhz at 1.7 volts. I can run a quake3 demoloop all night at 733mhz but I can't last long at 825mhz now. Thankyou.

 

[Lark888]

I wouldn't think the Orb would be damaged, it's a pretty simple hunk of stuff. More likely the chip itself may have been affected by the temps when you ran without fan. Perhaps there has been some loss of conductivity between the processor circuits and the surface where the HSF connects. Sorry I don't have any other more cheerful thoughts. Lark

 

[SubzeroPC]

Lark may very well be right unfortunately. However, it is worth it to try to get the Orb in good contact with the CPU. Lapping the Golden Orb certainly won't hurt the situation.

BTW: sandra is well known for giving inaccurate temp readings. Don't let them bother you too much.

 

[mschell]

The Golden Orb is large enough to operate passively(no fan) and keep the CPU cool enough to prevent damage to the CPU. The scratches you describe could not have been caused by running the cooler without the fan, they were most likely present but unnoticed when you first installed the unit.
If your system was fine before you installed the new memory, I would say the new memory is the culprit. You didn?t mention what motherboard you are running - even the fastest memory will cause system instability in motherboards that aren't so compatible with the memory manufacture, Some Abits in particular don't seem to like the Crucial/Micron memory. Another thing to check is the CAS setting. I don't think anyone is making memory that works reliably at CAS2 with 140MHz or greater FBS so confirm CAS3 timing settings. - M.

 

[Lark888]

I would have suspected the memory also except for his report on CPU temps going from 41C to 46C at the same time. cRazYdood - as always I'd be interested in what you finally determine to be the cause. Lark

 

[slpaulson]

When i said it was scrached I should have said that the out golden coat was off in those spots (anionazition or something like that). Well I just ordered a new alpha from 2cooltek and I havn't locked up since. I also ordered a video chipset cooler just incase it was my video card all of a sudden. I'm not sure which one fixed it. Btw I had to run the alpha blowing on the heatsink because if I had to to suck it really messed up my airflow and my case temp. got really hot. I'm using it on a slotket so instead of the air going to the outtake fan it was blown in the other direction. BTW that ram is great running 2-2-2-5 at 150mhz.

 

[Lark888]

Well, I dropped another 4-6C when I installed an Alpha versus the GORB on my PIII-650. The Alpha alone could have done it by itself. Glad to see you're back on top. Lark

 

[Painman]

I lapped my golden orb today. Took it down far enough to remove the grooves in the base with 200 grit, then further finished it with 400 and 600, then some #0000 steel wool and finally some metal polish. Nice and shiny when I got done, progressively finer sandpaper would have made a more perfect surface but I didn't have any on hand. It is keeping my CPU 3 to 4º C cooler than before, though. I would recommend this procedure to anyone with an orb, whether they cooked it or not.

-Pain