Strange temp behavior Athlon XP 2600+

[freeflyer]

I've got a XP 2600+ that has only ever been installed in an ECS N2U400-A motherboard.

Compared to all other XP processors and motherboards I've seen, this one has behaved oddly for temperature readings. As the CPU load has increased, the temperature reported by MBM has gotten LOWER. Usually it would drop only 1-3 degrees C.

I know the MBM reported temp is correct because I can reboot into Setup and the BIOS will report about the same temp.

So I've been running Windows 2003 on this board for awhile, and now just applied SP1, and the results are even stranger. The system temp immediately after booting was 47C. Now, about 3 minutes later while doing nothing but typing this post, the temp is 37C. Task Manager reports 0-2% load. If I reboot into Setup and watch the BIOS report of the temp, it will start at 38C and slowly rise to 44C.

What's going on here, and WTH did W2K3 SP1 do to change the behavior???

Thanks for any comments.

 

[freeflyer]

Well just to close out my own problem...

It appears that MS changed something in W2K3 SP1 to properly idle certain AMD processors. Apparently before SP1, when TaskMgr said the system was idle it was still spinning the CPU and keeping it hot. That appears to have changed, and now my CPU heats up as it should when I do something CPU-intensive and cools down again when idle. Strange, and welcome. I certainly know that my HS/fan is doing the job.

Also a little strange, just viewing the CPU Health screen in the BIOS causes the CPU to heat up as if fully loaded.