gainward ga-7n400(L?) & athlonxp 3000+ giving high temperatures and low performance....78 degreez!

[Triplefour]

 

[Triplefour]

heh. pressed enter when i shouldnt have
ok so i got this thing from ebay
and it posts really high temperatures like 78 degrees...but when i check the sensor in the bios it kind of seems to vary like 10 degrees at times...jumping around a lot....
even when i set the fsb to 100mhz resulting in 1050 mhz i get temperatures like 60 degrees...
i am using for cooling a vantec aeroflow (that TMD fan is loud as hell btw and vibrates all over)
i also tried with the zalman bracket and a 120 mm fan .... that cooling setup was able to cool my athlon xp2200 (166*11) to 45 degrees or less...
when i touch the heatsink it feels warm... but not very hot...i can easily keep my hand on it....is the surface temperature of the heatsink a good indicator of actual cpu temperature?
i can run games.... so far i installed windows, nforce2 drivers, gfx drivers (tii4600) , and directx9 in that order and when i ran the benchmark for ut2k3 at 1024X768 i only got like 43 fps when in my xp2200 rig (identical except for the motherboard and chip) i could get 60fps....
i went into the bios and was really disapointed to find nothing about agp aperature size......that really sucks because tweaking that setting seemed to be really important in getting the xp2200 machine (kt333) to hit high fps...
is there some other way i can change the agp aperature size?
this board also doesnt let me set cas or timing setitings or anything.... (it only has optimal aggresive turbo and expert i have it on expert i guess) but it lets me set the agp bus speed...weird...
is it because i have the L version?
how can i make sure my cpu is not really getting cooked?
i know its late and youre all sleeping but....damnit its not late here and im scratching my head to the point of baldness...
help please thanks

 

[TGHI]

First of all, the 7n400 is a Gigabyte board - not a gainward. Second of all, that board runs the CPU at about 1.71V all the time (as opposed to 1.65) which might slightly explian your temp problems - as well as the fact that Gigabyte BIOSes tend to run high on temps (my 7NNXP board says I'm idling at 49C - which simply is not possible). Third, to modify 'useful' features in your BIOS, after you press del and you are at the BIOS's first screen, hold CTRL and hit F1 - this allows several options to be unlocked when you go into the different categories(voltage options, timing options, and what you were looking for - AGP aperature).



Good luck.

 

[mechBgon]

Ok, first of all, --OH!!! LOOK OVER THERE, BEHIND YOU!!!

*hastily edits Triplefour's Hosts file so www.ebay.com routes to 66.151.66.149... there, that should fix the underlying problem here... *

--ooops, never mind, it wasn't Janet Jackson after all

Now, the next thing is to make sure your heatsink is on like shown here: picture Beyond that, it could just be the mobo's sensing is off and/or random. Sorry if that isn't much help

 

[Triplefour]

hey thanks but i think i know how to put on a heatsink! worth a shot though as putting it on wrong would certainly have ill effects...but i have checked it twice maybe 3 times and re applied the thermal paste to make sure it was evenly coating the whole surface of that part on the chip that wants to be cooled (technical names elude me atm)

and yeah i found that secret advanced features crap in the bios...ctrl+f1 woohoo so i was able to get the sytem running up to good speeds...is 78 fps for UT2k3 at 1024 x 768 a good score? thats the botmatch score...the flyby was a hundred something i dont even care.

anyway i guess im satisfied its well faster than my 2200+ by like 20fps....

but i was very disapointed when i found out that even in "advanced" mode the bios wont let me change anything about the rams bank interleaving (8qw or 4qw) and the option for 1T is missing...and also the part about setting turbo or fast or anything like that... so i have a feeling if i could tweak the ram settings a little better i could get more speed...but im really most worried about the temperature now as it seems to be the only problem left.... and its a huge problem.... in fact i dont know if its related but when i booted into windows a minute ago and let it sitting for a while without doing anything it just turned itself off....what the hell does that mean?! i turned it back on and it ran thu scandisk and then it went into windows again but i was busy doing something and not looking and i just heard it turn off again.... that scared me so now i lowerd the fsb to 133 which has the thing running as a 1800+ and still the cpu temperature says (in the bios) 68 degrees! thats ouch!
when i touch the heatsink it does feel hot but not really dangerously hot like ive felt before when i was trying to overclock stuff more than i should.... is there any way i can know for sure if the temperature sensor is just broken or what? i was really trying to beleive that its just a faulty sensor but when the system randomly shut down like that its making me paranoid all over again. i sent email to that e-bay seller....hopefully hes not the bastard im starting to judge him as.

could i be totally wrong about the heatsink though? like...do i really need something super fancy to cool a 3000+ ? i thought a cooling rig that was keeping a 2200 really cool should at least be able to mostly cool the 3000+

i bet no one can help me and i just got ripped off for 250 bux.... aRGHHHH

 

[mechBgon]

When the system shuts itself off, that's usually a sign that the CPU is dangerously overheated and has sent a "shut down, NOW!" signal to the mobo.

The usual causes of CPU overheat with an AthlonXP:

• The CPU is waaaay overvoltage and/or overspeed (some mobos have an Overvolt jumper, for example)
• The CPU is not touching the base of the heatsink well and therefore cannot transfer heat to it properly, due to
  • ...the heatsink being on backwards, or
  • ...the heatsink's on right, but the clip is installed into the heatsink backwards (pressure point of clip must be over the location of the CPU core, it's not symmetrical), or
  • ...the user has used a shim between the CPU and heatsink and it's too thick, or
  • ...the heatsink AND clip are both correct, but the heatsink has slid down the clip and is high-siding on the raised, solid-plastic end of the CPU socket
• There is a problem with the heat-transfer material between the CPU and heatsink (trying to re-use a one-use-only pad, or leaving out the thermal grease, or leaving the plastic slipcover on the thermal pad, or using very bad-quality thermal grease)
• There is a problem with the base of the heatsink not being flat enough

That should give you some stuff to check. Don't neglect it, the CPU will not tolerate the overheating forever.

 

[Triplefour]

wow thanks that was a pretty exhaustive list of things to check...

too bad i think i checked most of those...

i used the heatsink compound that came with the vantec aeroflow....i couldnt find my tube of OCZ silver stuff whatever it was called... but i had used this heatsink compound before on the 2200+ with an even way crappier heatsink just plain aluminum and it still kept at 45 degrees...i guess its ceramic cause its white and not silver or anything....but i think its fine...

the heatsink isnt on backwards

you know...the very first time i went to build an athlon system...like a 1ghz or something i didnt think to take that peice of tape off the bottom of the heatsink and i drove myself insane before i found it out how stupid i was. so its not that again....

the board doesnt have an overvoltage jumper...volts can be set in the bios....and i checked them with cpu-z and the vcore is 6.48

i dont think im running it out of speed...even when i run it really slow it hits high temperatures close to 70
it posted and seemed to run fine at 3200 even ...
right now its running for about an hour and i played some games and the MBM says 77 degrees....

the heatsink was actually a big pain in the ass to install...at first it didnt seem like i could fit it in there...theres this thing in the way um... well i dont know what the electronic component is but its a tall cylinder with 2 wires at the base attatching it to the motherboard...theyre all over the board and everywhere for that matter so i feel like i should know the name of it...they can kind of bend a bit....though we dont like to do that...and if you bend too much im sure they break at the base where those tiny wires are connected... is it called like a transistor or something? i dont know but its right in the way like real close to the cpu socket...theres several exactly like it around that area too but all of them stay nice and far away but theres this one thats like sticking out like a sore thumb right in the way and i swear i felt like i was going to break it off when i installed the heatsink.... it does go in though...and i figured if i can get the clips on both ends in snugly it should be ok..... the heatsink and the clips dont really allow much room for me to slide the heatsink around on the base of the cpu anyway....but i did try to slide it as far (maybe 1-2mm) away from that "obstruction*

im not using a shim...im just not that kind of guy.

and as for the base of the heatsink not being flat enough.... there is the part where the copper core meets the aluminum outside...its pretty snug fit but i kind of wonder.....the thing is it worked fine before.....its a really decent cooler.....cheap too if anyone knows a better deal though id try it at this point...

i think thats all of it... i am going to take the heatsink off again and try to make real sure about how its lining up...

i have one more question though, you said my cpu wont tolerate being overheated for long...how long do you mean? like...it appears to run stable...wouldnt i be experienceing some kind of instability if my cpu was actually 80 degrees?
and at what point would a chip fry out? and also if the heatsink doesnt burn my hand, can i trust that indication that my cpu wouldnt be burning my hand either if i could touch it?

thanks for all the help so far

 

[mechBgon]

First the easy one:

and also if the heatsink doesnt burn my hand, can i trust that indication that my cpu wouldnt be burning my hand either if i could touch it?

No. Take the extreme case where your heatsink was not actually touching the CPU at all. The CPU would be on its way to 300°C, but the heatsink would feel cool to the touch. The worse the thermal connection between the CPU and the heatsink, the greater the difference in temperature will be between them and the cooler the heatsink will feel.

Next, realize that motherboards are just not comparable to eachother. One board may read normal temps as being about 40C while another one will read normal temps near 70C, and it's just that they're calibrated wildly differently from eachother. Furthermore, the temperature readings are almost always taken from the air below the CPU, not the CPU itself. Long story there, I won't bore you with it right now. Suffice it to say that if the air below your CPU is at 80C, you are indeed in Big Trouble and your CPU is being degraded.

You've indicated that there was a fit problem with the heatsink. That makes me think that you should try a normal plain-vanilla Socket A heatsink that doesn't have a fit problem, and see if your temps are back to normal all of a sudden. Do you have one you could try on there? Those cylindrical devices are electrolytic capacitors, by the way. They contain some electrolytic fluid, and their purpose is analogous to a water tower on a city water system... they store up some reserve electrical current, and will release it if the voltage drops, thus stabilizing a temporary voltage drop caused by heavy current draw.

Yeah, anyway, try to figure this out, because like I said, if the air below your CPU is at 80C, the CPU itself is undoubtedly at a dangerously-high temperature. The CPU's die is rated typically for 85C or else 90C (it varies) but since you have no direct way of measuring it... yeah. Better safe than sorry. :Q

 

[Triplefour]

gainward ga7n400?!?! hahah what a dumb ass!
jiggabyte 4 ever, whoopz

 

[Triplefour]

electrolytic capacitors....cool now i know what those do, that was a good short explanation....


so basically theres no way to tell if my temperature sensor is lying to me?

i dont have another heatsink thats athlon rated around here.... i guess ill borrow a friends tomorrow...
couldnt i check by turning off the computer and taking the heatsink off really quickly to check the temperature on the chip? or would that be a bad idea cause the chip would overheat once i took the heatsink off? it couldnt overheat as it was powering down could it?

i was thinking of not attatching the heatsink but just kind of resting it on there so i can take it off quickly

 

[Triplefour]

also the heatsink does feel hotter at higher fsb and cooler at lower fsb so that must mean its connecting?

 

[TGHI]

I'm telling you, it's the BIOS! Anything above F12 reports stupid temperatures, I have heard this is a common problem - my board is no exception.

 

[Triplefour]

really? i know i have version F1 but whats F12 ? is that a typo ?

so whats the good bios to get? i think i saw the latest was f6

 

[Triplefour]

heh i just ordered the volcano 12 for the hell of it....mmm copper

 

[Triplefour]

ok well i got home from school today with a borrowed athlonxp 3000 and the AMD fan/heatsink combo that came with it.
psst hey buddy....could you like..loan me your processor for a night?
-uhh... yeah i guess...
anyway so i put his proc and his heatsink in and i get temperatures like 75 when i was getting steady 77 before... 2 degrees difference between (not quite) identical processors
i could beleive 2 degrees difference could exist between 2 identical processors so is that some kind of good sign?

yeah i tried updating the bios to f6 and that didnt lower the temperatures..... im running at 1050 mhz and it says 75 degrees pretty steady.

i even found my missing tube of OCZ ultra II silver stuff
maybe thats the 2 degrees

i know the damn heatsinks are centered on there right by now... especially this one i borrowed went in without a hitch well...there was a hitch but thats the clip, you know thats not funny at all but its still a joke suposedly
terrorism exists in all variety

so im starting to think the board is either:
1. gonna eat processors like that broken soda machine will eat your dollar bill as many times as youll give it one to eat

or

2. lying right to my face by 30 degrees or more, as part of some conspiracy on the part of thermaltake in order to boost sales of all copper heatsinks....coincidentially (i think not) there also seems to be a sale going on on said types of heatsinks...the paralels are uncanny

if theres no other way to be sure of actual processor temperature...i guess ill just have to run this thing until smoke starts coming out....how long do you think ill last at 75 degrees?

 

[Triplefour]

oh yeah another thing...my processors stepping and week and whatever i cant find anywhere if its actually locked or unlocked
it says: AXDA3000 DKv4E AQXFA0336vpmw
week 36 i guess....i know after week 44 processors were all locked right?

can 3000+ be overclocked very well? or are they made too close to the ceiling?

 

[Triplefour]

another weird thing i noticed (besides how many posts ive made in a row)
at 200mhz the temperature on MBM starts out at 62 from a cold start and then all at once it jumps to 76 and stays there
at 100mhz the temprature starts out saying something like 55 even and then jumps but only to 75?