If a heat sink fan quits will the heat sink alone be enough to save the processor?

[Macro2]

Say on an Athlon XP since a P4 will auto shutdown.

 

[Need4Speed]

that would depend on the size of the HS and ambient temp at the very least.

 

[Viper96720]

Also the motherboard. Some of the newer models have auto shutdown.

 

[Adul]

well my ax-7 saved my XP from failure.


i didnt connect the fan backup..

 

[Markfw]

I don't want to find out the hard way, but based on my near death (CPU death) experience when I forgot to hook up my fan, I would say that if your motherboard was set to shutdown at 70c, the heat sink would probably be enough to save it (mine lived). Without the auto-shutdown, I don't think it would make it, so make sure to enable that in your bios.

 

[Lord Evermore]

If it's a large heatsink, it should save it long enough for you to stop what you're doing and safely shut down. If it's just the stock heatsink (since the fins are so close together), I wouldn't expect it to last as long as with a larger, more open design which can radiate the heat better; the stock heatsink depends on the airflow, but it should still be enough to get the system shut down. It's part of the expected design of any good heatsink that it should at least provide "safe" operation, though not optimal. Athlons can safely reach a pretty high temperature without permanent damage.

When I set up a system using the stock thermal pad, I boot it up with the fan unplugged before I close everything up, and let it sit in the CMOS setup monitoring screen and watch the temperature rise, to allow the thermal pad to reach the phase change temperature better than it would in actual use. The CMOS setup runs the CPU at a medium to high usage, so it boosts the temperature better than running the OS idle.

You'd be pushing it trying to run the system at 100% for more than a short time after you hear the fan die. It might not do immediate severe damage, but it may cause damage that results in minor, hard to track down instabilities later.

 

[nemo160]

i had a fan die on my tbird 1.4, but my sk-6 saved it
i did have thermal shut down set in the bios at around 60-70

 

[Macro2]

I had one guy tell me one time his kid accidently put his finger on the CPU fan and bent the blade so it stopped. He pulled the plug as soon as he could. Maybe 15 seconds. Replaced the fan and everything worked fine.
I would think some of these large heat sinks could carry it without too much trouble. Even if it gained 20C it would probably be OK.
I would like to see a heat sink comparison done without their fans running or at the least all having the same small fan. That way we would know which heatsink is the most efficient.

Mac

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Macro2
Say on an Athlon XP since a P4 will auto shutdown.

If you have a thermal shutdown in either bios or via some desktop software you're going to be fine. You can't run indefinately without a fan for sure but it's going to take a few minutes to reach dangerous temps and even if your thermal sensor is on the mobo and not the die itself you'll be ok.

Running without a heatsink at all will kill an athlon in about .4 seconds whereas a p4 should probably survive the ordeal.