How long does a sock A CPU last with just a heatsink?

[Ionizer86]

My EPoX board's fan power connector was busted, and I booted up my 1600+ with just the heatsink, since the fan wasn't spinning (the board power connector was busted!!) Since it was for under 15 seconds, should my CPU be ok? I accidently plugged in my older T-bird 1.0ghz fan onto the same broken power connector, and my T-bird survived with just the heatsink and no working fan.

BTW, after powering down, the heatsink did not feel overly hot.

 

[ShadowFox]

you should be fine, the heatsink probably absorbed most of the heat, besides that processor is not as hot as some

Edit: it takes a LOT of heat to kill a processor (80C+)

 

[limsandy]

A few seconds at most...... A fan on top of the heatsink is HIGHLY recommended.

 

[indianduddawg47]

athlon xp's have a built-in thermal diode for fan failures - you should be fine.

 

[Damascus]

The thermal diode may be built in but it requires motherboard support. Even so
I don't think you have anything to worry about if its only 15 seconds. The only
time you should worry is those times you pop the system on without a heatsink
on the CPU.

 

[indianduddawg47]

my friend did that - except he used his finger as the heatsink.... he burnt his finger in less than a second.

 

[Ionizer86]

Thanks for the advice. I think that my CPU should be fine now, because after using my T-bird to test the EPoX board, it is working on my K7T Pro and processing as I am typing.

I believe that the Asus A7V266-E is the only mobo with support for the diode. The EPoX does have this auto shutdown feature in Bios, but I'm not sure if it works or not.

 

[Retro2001]

I think that processors are more durable than they are often made out to be. Recently (2 days ago), while setting up a tiny microATX system, i had the cpu fan die. Mind you this is a duron 750 with a 1u heatsink on it in a tiny case with no fan. The CPU temp was up to 120 C (260 F) before I noticed the failure and shut down the computer, the stickers on the fan were melting off. Happy end to the story is, the Duron still works just as well as it did before the incidnet.

 

[neuralfx]

ya the palomino's thermal diode is supposed to protect against that .. but take a look over at Uncle Tom's hardware, they have a video review of how the thermal diodes fair, between intel's and amd's when they took the hsf during quake .. the intel lived through it .. couldnt say the same for amd's, sadly ..
-neural

 

[Mikewarrior2]

re: Internal Diode info

A7V266E does NOT read the internal diode. It does, however, actually have fairly decent shutdown security features for fan failure.

For other MB's. The Internal diode is not capable by itself of shutting down and saving hte CPU. It requires specialized hardware that isn't currently available on current MBs.



Mike

 

[thomsbrain]

<< my friend did that - except he used his finger as the heatsink.... he burnt his finger in less than a second. >>



that wasn't the only thing he burnt.

 

[Elledan]

A Socket A CPU should be able to run for at least a couple of minutes with only a (decent) heatsink. Without a heatsink the CPU would die in less than 10 seconds.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

yeah w/o a heatsink, i'd give a socket A cpu 5-10, maybe 15 seconds depending on clock speed and voltage (tbirds around 5 seconds)

with a heatsink but no fan, it could be anywhere from a few minutes to infinity, once again, depending on clock speed, voltage, and heatsink.

a duron 600 w/ a 8045 @ 1.2V or something would probably work....worth a try

 

[CTho9305]

<< A few seconds at most...... A fan on top of the heatsink is HIGHLY recommended. >>



my tbird 700 reaches a max of 50C when fanless . I tested it for 24 hours under load.
but thats only if I underclock to 500 and drop the vcore to 1.3

for 700 fanless: I stopped the test when it reached 60C and was still climbing.

edit: I didn't try anything in between. for all I know 650mhz might be fine without a fan. but i paid for 700MHz, and I better get 750MHz out of it! (800 is unstable )

 

[AA0]

A7V266-E does read the thermal diode, it just isn't working properly.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

AA0,

I doubt it will ever "work". And I doubt it is even reading it now. Why? Because mbm manufacturers did try to get internal diode readings with current kt266A mb's. However, the winbond ASIC chips were incompatible with the Xp/MP internal diode. Its likely the Asus ASIC chip (that does work with P3s and P4s like the winbonds) also is incompatible with the AMD internal diode. This would explain why people get either very small or no variance when the jumper is set to "reserved".

I'm not sure that a bios revision can solve this problem. Certainly, a revised ASIC Chip and a new revision motherboard might.


Mike

 

[Mikewarrior2]

CandoMan,

Of the boards right now... there's only one with an extremely remote, outside possibility of reading the diode: The A7V266E series.

Of the others, they're hard wired to read the socket-thermsitor. In addition to most of the other mb's use hte same winbond asic, its 99.999% likely that a bios update will not allow them to read the diode. Reading the diode requires compatible hardwire in addition to hardware modding the board. Someone that peruses several forums is in the midst of making his own itnernal diode reading, using the one ASIC chip that AMD recognizes as being able to read the diode, the Max 19xx chip.



Mike

 

[RalfHutter]

I run MBM5 and have it set to send a "shutdown" command to an app called "ShutdownNOW". I keep the hi-temp threshold set at 55C. I've tested this by lowering the shutdown temp and it works (shuts off my box) great. I figure if my HS fan takes a dump I'll be OK, but if the entire cooler falls off I'm f**ked.

BTW - 1.4 Tbird, EPoX 8K7A mobo, no OC.

 

[MrHelpful]

<< A few seconds at most...... A fan on top of the heatsink is HIGHLY recommended. >>


Nope. That's only without a heatsink.

 

[Justin218]

Forgot to plug in the fan on my Duron 750@866(when I was o/cing, doesn't seem worth it much to me) and it ran for like 10 minutes before I noticed. Was real hot but no big deal, still using it.

 

[Sunner]

Rab my Duron 600@900 without a fan for a short while, I forgot to plug in the fan, and started up.

But this was still while I was tuning things, so I spent most of the time in the BIOS, and eventually looked in the power management section, to see the CPU temp at ~70 C and climbing rather fast.
Needless to say I understood what was wrong and fixed it, worked fine until 2 weeks ago when I replaced the Duron with an AXP