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How long can you run an Athlon XP mobile without a heatsink/fan?

K

krackato

Golden Member
I know it's a stupid question, but how long can you run an Athlon XP mobile without a heatsink/fan? I ask because I ran 1 of these chips in my Duallie board with the Heatsink/Fan combo merely laying on the chip to see if it posted without physically attatching it to the board, cause that's an insane pain. And it didn't post. I ran it in there for under a minute, probably under 20-45 seconds and the heatsink/fan was always spinning on top of it. But now the chip won't work in any of my other motherboards either and I'm afraid I fried it. The top looks fine, but there a semi-dark, almost oily looking 'blotch' on the bottom.

So, lesson learned. Always attatch your heatsink/fans no matter how painful it is, because atleast you'll know that's not why your cpu went nuts.

BTW, This happened to TWO of my Athlon mobiles. Sigh... It's been a long 2 days.
 
its fried. it takes about 5-15 seconds for it to fry. cpu's run very HOT. i mean, with a good fan, its running at 35-40 degrees celcius, and thats pretty hot wihtout the fan or heatsink. its like putting a cpu on top of a frying pan, and now your cpu is scrambled.
 
i've seen videos of people taking the hs off while playing gamessome of them started smoking after a few seconds i think they were at tomshardware.com
 
wow, i honestly cannot fathom why on earth you would have done that. im sorry that you had to learn it the hard way. i guess it isnt as obvious as i thought. tough break but lesson learned i guess.
 
The CPU core will hit an overheat condition in about one to two seconds. You must clip down the heatsink or the base of the heatsink won't actually touch the CPU core, because the compressible cornerpads on the CPU will lift the heatsink off the core unless the clip is squishing them down.
 
Yup. Sometimes it helps to learn the hardway...bet you'll never fry another chip.🙂

On the bright side, with AMD's outstanding value, you can fry chips and not have it hurt as much dollar wise as Intel frying😀
 
Faster than you can turn the computer off? It's interesting to see some one prove that AMD wasn't kidding.

About those cushions: I had a heatsink that had a round bottom and missed the cushions. Being the inventive genius that I am 🙂, I made some cushions out of some squishy foam cabinet door bumpers I had lyiing around, instead of moving the ones my chip came with, because I figured I'd just destroy the bumpers trying to get them off. It seemed to work perfectly!

Then I was running the mobo and I began to smell the very distinctive smell of solder melting. In fact, overheatiing. (I used to solder maybe 50 chips a day in the course of fixing circuit boards at a factory.) I shut the mobo off, and investigated. I couldn't find anything wrong. I must imaginating. I tried again and left it run longer. I did that a several more times, and by that time the room stunk from overheated solder. It finally dawned on me what might be happening. It seems the cushy foam was not quite cushy enough.

The white heatsink grease had turned solid and brown, with blackened areas. So then I moved AMD's cushions. AMD's cushions don't look like anything special, but apparently they are "just right." But in my case, the CPU worked fine for a couple of years until I upgraded, and the old 800MHz Athlon still works (OCed to 940) when I use it to "try out things."

That was the second near death experience that CPU experienced, because the slug had the edge crushed off when I tried to put the circular bottom heatsink on WITHOUT cushions to even the pressure.
 
Lets just say the watts/area of an Athlon is much much much much higher than a frying pan. If you had a chip the size of a typical frying pan, it will cook a whale within minutes. These things are just really expensive heating elements. 🙂
 
Lol nice analogy!! I have run mine with out the fan running because i was trying to see where the racket was coming from (turned out to be my WD HDD) and it did just fine. Although i shut it off in 10 secs just in case.

-Kevin
 
I've run both my 1.8a & 3.0c w/o the HSF for minutes while I was checking a potential problem w/ the HSF seating and there's been no problem with them.
 
Originally posted by: KFI had a heatsink that had a round bottom and missed the cushions... That was the second near death experience that CPU experienced, because the slug had the edge crushed off when I tried to put the circular bottom heatsink on WITHOUT cushions to even the pressure.
Click to expand...

Lemme guess, an ORB style heatsink?

Yes, Athlons will die in less time than it takes for you to pull the power cord. I really don't know why people still do this. A friend of mine did that once. Dunno why people who KNOW that these things get hot will still THINK that they can run "for just a few seconds" without a heatsink and fan. Now, running it without a fan but WITH a heatsink properly attached will work for a few seconds, until the heatsink absorbs all the heat it can, then it will start overheating.

As for krackato, I think it was just kinda a mistake (and not some "biggest dumbass award"). He didn't try to run it completely without a fan/heatsink, just didn't have it clipped in and didn't know that the foam pads would keep them from contacting. For testing purposes (usually to POST a setup to find out if a component is dead or not) I've run many CPUs without clipping in the heatsink, and sometimes without running the fan. I don't try it on any flip chips, though, such as Athlons and Coppermines, only on chips like older Mendicinos, VIA C3, any P4 chips. Those have a larger surface to balance a heatsink on and they won't suffer immediate death in case the heatsink slips off. In fact today I tested three P4 boards like that without a problem. I wouldn't ever try that with an Athlon, though.
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Nomination for the biggest dumbass award...
Click to expand...

lol, me or the original poster??

I wasn't overly concerned about the P4's because they've got built-in thermal protection, which shuts the processor down. Anyway, it was the only way I could check on the problem I was having that was periodically shutting my system down...
 
I wouldn't even measure it in seconds.. I'd say if you take your HSF off, the CPU is gone, no chance of getting to shut the power down unless it's instantaneous.
 
Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Nomination for the biggest dumbass award...
Click to expand...

lol, me or the original poster??

I wasn't overly concerned about the P4's because they've got built-in thermal protection, which shuts the processor down. Anyway, it was the only way I could check on the problem I was having that was periodically shutting my system down...
Click to expand...

The OP... but you're a close 2nd =) hehe, j/k
 
Originally posted by: CraigRT
I wouldn't even measure it in seconds.. I'd say if you take your HSF off, the CPU is gone, no chance of getting to shut the power down unless it's instantaneous.
Click to expand...

Yeah pretty much... go grab a 60 watt light bulb and tell me if it's warm... then imagine all the heat from that light bulb in an area the size of your little fingernail... heatsink is kinda important!
 
I had an xp2500 that i thought was fried, so out of curiousity, I placed it in the socket, and held my finger on the core, and pushed the power button. That green devil got hot fast! Not thinking, I pushed the power button, but then realized I had to hold it for 5 seconds, whereas I could have just unplugged it.

Luckily, it still works, however.
 
Originally posted by: RussianSoldier
I had an xp2500 that i thought was fried, so out of curiousity, I placed it in the socket, and held my finger on the core, and pushed the power button. That green devil got hot fast! Not thinking, I pushed the power button, but then realized I had to hold it for 5 seconds, whereas I could have just unplugged it.

Luckily, it still works, however.
Click to expand...

Or you could have put a fuggin heatsink on it.

Why is putting a heatsink on such a pain? I can do it in 3 seconds.
 
Originally posted by: krackato
I know it's a stupid question, but how long can you run an Athlon XP mobile without a heatsink/fan? I ask because I ran 1 of these chips in my Duallie board with the Heatsink/Fan combo merely laying on the chip to see if it posted without physically attatching it to the board, cause that's an insane pain. And it didn't post. I ran it in there for under a minute, probably under 20-45 seconds and the heatsink/fan was always spinning on top of it. But now the chip won't work in any of my other motherboards either and I'm afraid I fried it. The top looks fine, but there a semi-dark, almost oily looking 'blotch' on the bottom.

So, lesson learned. Always attatch your heatsink/fans no matter how painful it is, because atleast you'll know that's not why your cpu went nuts.

BTW, This happened to TWO of my Athlon mobiles. Sigh... It's been a long 2 days.
Click to expand...

You should get together with this guy and build a computer together.
 
Originally posted by: krackato
I know it's a stupid question, but how long can you run an Athlon XP mobile without a heatsink/fan? I ask because I ran 1 of these chips in my Duallie board with the Heatsink/Fan combo merely laying on the chip to see if it posted without physically attatching it to the board, cause that's an insane pain. And it didn't post. I ran it in there for under a minute, probably under 20-45 seconds and the heatsink/fan was always spinning on top of it. But now the chip won't work in any of my other motherboards either and I'm afraid I fried it. The top looks fine, but there a semi-dark, almost oily looking 'blotch' on the bottom.

So, lesson learned. Always attatch your heatsink/fans no matter how painful it is, because atleast you'll know that's not why your cpu went nuts.

BTW, This happened to TWO of my Athlon mobiles. Sigh... It's been a long 2 days.
Click to expand...

Duuuude!
That CPU will fry in less than a second.
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Originally posted by: RussianSoldier
I had an xp2500 that i thought was fried, so out of curiousity, I placed it in the socket, and held my finger on the core, and pushed the power button. That green devil got hot fast! Not thinking, I pushed the power button, but then realized I had to hold it for 5 seconds, whereas I could have just unplugged it.

Luckily, it still works, however.
Click to expand...

Or you could have put a fuggin heatsink on it.

Why is putting a heatsink on such a pain? I can do it in 3 seconds.
Click to expand...

3 sec?
Damn thats fast, It takes me at least 3 minutes to smooth out the thermal goop stuff... and then at least 15 seconds to screw the heatsink in. I know your sarcasm, and the OP has learned his lesson the very expensive way (hopefully) but reapplying thermal goop correctly is kinda a pain if you have to do it repeatedly (especially if you nit-pick and then slip with the card and mess it up) :/
 
Originally posted by: Tiamat
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Originally posted by: RussianSoldier
I had an xp2500 that i thought was fried, so out of curiousity, I placed it in the socket, and held my finger on the core, and pushed the power button. That green devil got hot fast! Not thinking, I pushed the power button, but then realized I had to hold it for 5 seconds, whereas I could have just unplugged it.

Luckily, it still works, however.
Click to expand...

Or you could have put a fuggin heatsink on it.

Why is putting a heatsink on such a pain? I can do it in 3 seconds.
Click to expand...

3 sec?
Damn thats fast, It takes me at least 3 minutes to smooth out the thermal goop stuff... and then at least 15 seconds to screw the heatsink in. I know your sarcasm, and the OP has learned his lesson the very expensive way (hopefully) but reapplying thermal goop correctly is kinda a pain if you have to do it repeatedly (especially if you nit-pick and then slip with the card and mess it up) :/
Click to expand...

After the thermal compound is applied and the CPU is installed, yes, 3 seconds to set the heatsink on it, oriented properly, hook one end of the clip, and use a screw driver or nut driver to secure the other end. Ok... maybe 5 seconds.

I just don't understand why taking a few minutes to properly clean everything, apply thermal compound, and install the heatsink is such a big deal. Especially when you're dealing with a couple hundred dollars worth of hardware. THREE MINUTES... come on... might wanna get that ADD checked out...
 
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