Is my new CPU over heating ... or is it something else?

[ZaijiaN]

I just upgraded my P2-400 to a P3-600 (katmai). At first, it wouldn't boot (except for twice, then it froze quickly after), I kept getting stop errors in Win2K. I replaced the heatsink with a better one, and dual fan to boot, and now everything (mostly) runs fine. Things run well, and as expected, for the most part, but during some intensive stuff (like games, or wav editing) my computer will hard lockup, and I need to reset it afterwards. Is there some problems with upgrading from a P2 to a P3? Are there drivers I might be missing? Maybe it's something weird with my mobo (Asus p2b-ls). Or is it just overheating? It kind of sounds like it might be overheating, but upon touching the heatsink, it doesn't seem to be too terribly hot. So what's the deal?

Asus P2B-LS (lan/scsi)
p3-600 katmai (2.05 volt or something) 100mhz fsb, 512k cache
256mb pc100 micron sdram
ati all in wonder radeon 32mb
dual booting win2k/win98

 

[Pearman]

That happened to me sometimes on my PII-233. Was just that it couldnt handle what it was doing, so it froze up. Dont think that's your problem though, with a 600mhz processor.

 

[interchange]

Make sure you have the newest bios revision:
Asus BIOS Software

Since you've got an older BX board, it may have trouble with the Katmai core without the latest BIOS. I'm not sure if you've got voltage stepping, but that's also something to try bumping up.

If you still thinkt he problem is heat related, post the temperatures reported by your BIOS monitor after a lockup. It could very well be a problem with the video card overheating because the ambient case temperature is too high. In that case, you would need to look into a HSF for your video card and/or extra exhaust in your case.

 

[ZaijiaN]

interchange:
I have the latest revision bios for my mobo, and there is no way to manually adjust the voltage stepping, otherwise I would have gotten a coppermine. I'm don't think it's not heat related, though the temp in my case is a lot hotter when it does crash. I'm beginning to suspect it happens when both my cpu is being pushed and the hard drive is being read/written. Examples: wav editing in cooledit, divx encoding, in-game loading, things of that nature. Shudder to think what would happen if I try defragging. So I don't think it's video card related either. Heat maybe, but it's looking less of a culprit. I don't have any way to monitor my cpu temp, i haven't bought one of those probes, though I might soon.

 

[ZaijiaN]

Well, it looks like it's something else, I had it tested on a different system (one w/ a Cu-able mobo) with 3Dbenchmark 2000, and it didn't lock up. So what is it then? I've ruled out overheating, intensive apps.... Maybe intensive CPU operation and hard drive access is too much of a power drain? I've got a 300W PS, but then again, I've got 3 SCSI CD drives, 1 SCSI HD, 1 IDE HD, 3 fans, an ATI radeon, SB Live platinum (with live drive), DVD decoder, USB mouse... I'm going to try unhooking some stuff and try again. If it still does it, then it will probably be the motherboard... Anybody have an Asus P2B-LS and P3 600 Katmai?