I'll admit I'm very lucky...
I bought an Athlon XP 2700+ a year and a half ago and enjoyed lots of gaming and fun for a while. Suddenly, I started getting the general indications that the computer was overheating -- programs were crashing, the machine was randomly rebooting and I even had a few blue screens and reboot errors (Win XP Pro).
I finally decided to monitor the temperature of the system with MoboMonitor. Lo and behold the cpu core was reading 70 C while idle. Yes, 70 C from a cold boot fresh into windows. I immediately opened the case to check the fans, cord configurations and dust. I saw that everything appeared fine and decided to leave the case open and blow a house fan into the side. I live in a pretty dust-free environment and so buildup hadn't been a problem for the next few weeks/months at least. Well, throughout this new period the temperature never cooled off and even rose slightly: 75, 78, 80 and the highest -- 84 C! Over the past 2 months I've underclocked to 2500+ and switched house fans, never thinking to check the HSF and grease...
Yesterday I took care of that. I was pretty shocked to see lots of buildup and an almost putty-like form to the thermal grease that was on the cpu die. The heatsink had slight "burn" indications and was just as unclean as the processor.
I grabbed some new grease, cleaned the chip and HS and air-cleaned it well as I reinstalled. First boot I notice the MoboMonitor temp sitting at a nice 38C. After 10 minutes of Doom3 I notice the temp at 43C. I then go and OVERclock the CPU to 2800+ and re-run Doom3 -- 53C!
So I guess the moral of the story for Athlon XP users is to run them hot as hell =) In seriousness, I am very lucky because 85C is the absolute hottest that thing should ever get without frying and I got darn close for a couple months straight. Can you believe this? Over a full year with a CPU running well over 70C and powered on 24/7...
Kudos to AMD and tonight I might try to run that 2700+ at 3000 <wink>.
I bought an Athlon XP 2700+ a year and a half ago and enjoyed lots of gaming and fun for a while. Suddenly, I started getting the general indications that the computer was overheating -- programs were crashing, the machine was randomly rebooting and I even had a few blue screens and reboot errors (Win XP Pro).
I finally decided to monitor the temperature of the system with MoboMonitor. Lo and behold the cpu core was reading 70 C while idle. Yes, 70 C from a cold boot fresh into windows. I immediately opened the case to check the fans, cord configurations and dust. I saw that everything appeared fine and decided to leave the case open and blow a house fan into the side. I live in a pretty dust-free environment and so buildup hadn't been a problem for the next few weeks/months at least. Well, throughout this new period the temperature never cooled off and even rose slightly: 75, 78, 80 and the highest -- 84 C! Over the past 2 months I've underclocked to 2500+ and switched house fans, never thinking to check the HSF and grease...
Yesterday I took care of that. I was pretty shocked to see lots of buildup and an almost putty-like form to the thermal grease that was on the cpu die. The heatsink had slight "burn" indications and was just as unclean as the processor.
I grabbed some new grease, cleaned the chip and HS and air-cleaned it well as I reinstalled. First boot I notice the MoboMonitor temp sitting at a nice 38C. After 10 minutes of Doom3 I notice the temp at 43C. I then go and OVERclock the CPU to 2800+ and re-run Doom3 -- 53C!
So I guess the moral of the story for Athlon XP users is to run them hot as hell =) In seriousness, I am very lucky because 85C is the absolute hottest that thing should ever get without frying and I got darn close for a couple months straight. Can you believe this? Over a full year with a CPU running well over 70C and powered on 24/7...
Kudos to AMD and tonight I might try to run that 2700+ at 3000 <wink>.