HELP! Dual MP 2000+ on Tyan S2460 @ 78C !!??

[TheHorta]

I just put together a system with a retail Tyan S2460 "Tiger MP" motherboard and two (2) AMD Athlon MP 2000+ retail processors with stock HSFs. The BIOS on the S2460 is reporting BOTH processors running at 78C!!!!! The system is uncovered in a cool room with plenty of airflow. Is this a common problem? Are those temperatures accurate? It seems to be running fine with no aberrations, but I've never seen ANY of my processors running higher than 50C, and I'm not doing ANYTHING but running normally. It's for a mission-critical server, so no shennanigans going on here.

What gives? Are there any known problems?



The Horta

 

[kyoshozx]

Those temps are extremely high, are you sure the heatsinks are mounted correctly?
Did you take off that plastic flim that was covering the thermal pad on the heatsinks?
Maybe you want to use thermal compound instead of the thermal pad that come with retail heatsinks.

 

[TheHorta]

I understand that it's always a good idea to start with the obvious, but I've built a countless number of servers and workstations, so they certainly *seem* to be mounted correctly and--at the risk of sounding ungrateful--of course I took the plastic film off ;-)

This is the first time I've stuck with a stock HSF. I absolute HATE that sticky crap they put on stock coolers and the fans are usually underpowered. Typically, I will opt for a quality copper HSF and use AS with a high-CFM fan, but decided that since this was going for reliability AMD would naturally include adequate HSFs for their enterprise-class CPUs. Sadly, that appears not to be the case. This is my first AMD MP system. I have been exclusively Xeon to this point, but in light of AT's excellent reviews of the AMD MPs I gave it a shot. Performance-wise, the MPs may be up to the task, but sometimes it's the little things that amount to more. Any Ferrari owner could easily afford a Viper that may outperform his $300,000 Maranello, but it will never be a Ferrari. I think AMD is the Viper here.

I was tempted to scrape that crap off and use AS, but didn't want to go through the hassle. Even cool, that stuff doesn't like to readily give up its grip.

Any other ideas? Is the S2460 bad at measuring temps?



The Horta.

 

[bozo1]

When you are looking at your temps in the BIOS, did you press a key to refresh the display? That's a bug that has been around in Tyan BIOS's for quite a while which they have no plans of fixing for some reason. Pressing any key when looking at the values should update the screen with the correct ones.

Also, if you use MBM to read your temps, there is a special way to set it up for the 2460 motherboard so it reads the values correctly. (info on MBM's webpage)

 

[TheHorta]

Ahhhsoooo.....

I will refresh, get MBM, and post any results. Thanks for the tips. That's what I was looking for. I will let you know if it changes anything.



The Horta.

 

[TheHorta]

I just REFRESHED in the BIOS. What a freakin' counterintuitive arrangement THAT is!

Anyway, after the refresh it was 46C for CPU-0 and 50C for CPU-1

How are these temps? While certainly better than the 78C earlier reading, 50C with the case open on a cool night ain't looking so hot (well...you know what I mean).

Better than what it was, no doubt, but should be better still.

 

[SnoMunke]

I have a similar system and had trouble keeping my dualies cool with the stock heatsinks. I read some reviews about how bad the stock heatsinks are. I would suggest getting a better heatsink (with shim).

 

[DaFinn]

Normal temp for MPs is between 40-50C, so your temps sound about right. With proper thermal compound (AS) you can still get 2-4C off those temps.
I've build couple of systems w. 1800+ MPs and temps were around 40C under normal use, 50C under heavy load. CPU-1 is allways hotter for some reason? (nothing to do I guess?) I've used Aluminium GlacialTech coolers (2400 PRO), which are much more effective than the retail ones though...


-DaFinn

 

[SnoMunke]

CPU1 on my system always runs hotter too...about 1-3degrees C...if you look at the physical layout of the MPX boards the RAM blocks air flow to CPU1 (my understanding is the primary CPU is more to the top of the board)...anybody else got any ideas?

Anybody watercool their system? I am thinking about installing a full on watercooling system to include chipset, GPU, CPU, and HDD...anybody have any nightmares they would like to share?

 

[TheHorta]

The temps are with the box open, so I don't think it's the RAM blocking CPU-1 that makes it a few degrees warmer. I just think CPU-2 sits idle most of the time, making it inherently cooler. You'd think for the extra money, and the fact that AMD is chasing the small enterprise market (no 4-way), that they'd ante up with a respectable cooler.

Sometimes I wonder if they're serious about competing with Intel--especially in the business market.



The Horta.