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Question of the reliability of Pads on stock AMD heatsinks.

V

VIAN

Diamond Member
My friend built some computers that have gone unstable with random reboots after about a year. He thinks it's the AMD chips- saying he's gonna switch to Intel :roll:. But I told him that it can't be, AMD has good heat protection, not as good as Intel's, but there shouldn't be an AMD problem. He says he's getting high temps up around 150F on what I think is an AXP setup. I like to use Celcius, so I am unfamiliar with that temp. But it has happened on all the PCs he built. I'm thinking he's doing something wrong, but do you think that the thermal pad might be the cause of it?
 
150 F is around 60C.... (i think I did the mental math right) And that is wicked high for an Athlon XP or an A64 but not for the Prescott P4...

Has he checked the RAM? Or perhaps he is not running the latest BIOS on his machines. If he built a bunch of computers he probably used the same mobo throughout which may be why they are all afflicted by this...

As far as the Thermal pad goes... I'm not sure how good the Thermal Pad on the AXP's is... butI would assume that it is sufficient.
 
Google has a cool search feature-- it can do conversions between different units of measurement (in this case english to metric). Try searching: "150 fahrenheit to celsius" and it gives you "150 degrees Fahrenheit = 65.5555556 degrees Celsius" at the top of the search results. Works for other stuff too, ie 156 oz to lbs, etc etc... Can you verify that this is indeed an axp chip, and also, was the 150 degrees F you mentioned under load/stress test or what?
 
Well, he didn't give me a definitive answer, but he says that if his friend's room gets a bit hot, that it could restart while idle.

If he's playing a game, the crashes are at random time intervals, it could last for a few hours before it restarts.

He said his other friend had the same problem and a change of Heatsink fixed it. hmmm. I think I might have a look see at his friends comp.
 
It may be that the case has poor ventilation. How many fans did he install in the case. AMD reccomends one intake fan at the front and one exhaust fan at the back for athlon64s, and I'm assuming that the XP's would be similar.

Also, I've never heard of the thermal pad being unreliable. Is the HSF attached properly and firmly? If it's not, it may not be making good contact with the CPU, which would cause the same problem your describing.

RoD
 
He has the Thermaltake Xaser III.

I visited my friend. He said that to run it at an Ok level with minimal crashing, but still crashes a lot, he had to underclock his AXP and keep the case open without it's sides.

Something definitely wrong here.

I'm gonna go overthere today and give it a full thorough lookin.
 
unstable can be anything. bad ram, dying mb, dying chip..overheating chip.. lousy pos psu(usually culprit) or video card... pc trouble shooting is a nightmare u see.

don't be so quick to blame the cpu😛 underclocking could just be placing less stress on other parts of his system that are screwed up too.

pad>paste for reliability. it doesn't sqeeze out or slowly dry over time. that is why it is included stock. it will last the life of the processor.
assuming reading is accurate, 60 is high, but not so horrible it would crash ....

dude dusts his headsink right?

amd engineers aren't twits. the stock hs should last the life of the processor. atleast 10 years.
 
His CPU is 3200+ AXP.

I changed stock HSF to some Coolermaster XDream, but the fan on it is a 80mm 2700rpm fan.

right now, doing 2d work, the cpu is at 53C, the Mobo is at 30C.

voltages are at:
12.48
4.95
3.37
1.68 cpu
 
Be sure he installed the thermal compound properly. Applying too much is bad.

Heh. About the temps, in the summer when my room is hot, I generally get a CPU temperature of 141F/60C - with a case temp of 120F/49C
Opening a window drops it down to 120F/49C, with a case temp of 111F/44C
Turning on the AC drops it down to 115F/46C, with a case temp of 105F/40.5C

When I said hot room, i meant HOT. By leaving my computer on, with the window closed, and the door closed, for more than 6-8 hours - my room gets unbearably hot.
Partly because of the 9800 pro producing a lot of heat.

I have a zalman7700Alcu by the way.

IMO it's the summer. Even if I turn on the AC, with my room door closed the AC (I have central air, so it's slower and less efficient) is useless. temps keep rising (although more slowly).

Edit: I have a medium sized room, nothing too big, nothing unbearably small.

Hope that helps a bit.

-The Pentium Guy
 
oh forgot to tell you.

After I changed the HSF, I also removed cluttered wires for better airflow. And I closed the sides of the case.

It can now run at full speed while playing a game and still be in the 50s C. I think it just stays to about 53C most of the time, even at idle.

His heatsink is pretty hot, but still bareble to touch, which seems weird. I'll tell him in a few days to lay his comp on it's side to see if it makes better contact.
 
Yep, definately a bad airflow problem. It could be that these pads are wearing off, but I doubt it.
Try adding in another fan, that's al I can say. If you have a side fan, remove it (it causes more turbulence than it helps btw) and bring it up to the front. See if that helps.

-TPG
 
the XaserIII has a total of 7 fans and IIRC the review rated it as the best in airflow.

Maybe, I'll try disabling the the top fan and the side fans.

 
Strange as hell. Hey - I hope I don't seem annoying by making all these suggestions - I'm just trying to help out.

Last suggestion I can think of: Put the A/C on - let us know your temps when the room is really cool.
A more energy saving way (this is what I do, it's 10x faster than the A/C): Take a square fan, and put it on your window as an intake to your room. Put it on high for about 30 minutes, I swear, your room will be unbearably cold (I'm not kidding, it's impossible to sleep with that amount of coldness). Then let us know your temps 😛.

-The Pentium Guy
 
I think it's a problem of too much thermal compound. It's not like there's a huge gap between the heatsink and the CPU. I've been testing CPU's for years and I found that using virtually no thermal compound at all produces the lowest temps.
 
I just tried putting your post in a quote, apparently Anandtech's gone retarded and decided to put a word censor on their forum What the hell?
I think it doesn't like the word "Assets"
 
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