I recently upgraded (on a budget) to an Athlon XP 2100+. I’m having some…issues. First: The CPU fan (Thermaltake Volcano 5, or 6 – everything I’ve found says it should handle the job) isn’t keeping the CPU cool enough. I’ve got it scaled down to 2/3 power to keep it from running so hot that it locks up, and still occasionally have problems. (When needed, which is too often, I have a small house fan that I have placed blowing into the case. I’d like to get rid of that.) Second: The power supply I got seems to be inadequate. The 5.5V rail is only outputting about 4.6V. I have some wierd issues – occasional restarts, fatal exceptions, etc. – that I think may be caused by the power supply.
So, here’s why I bring this up. I’ll soon be looking to get some new parts. If the general consensus here is that the power supply probably isn’t the issue, I’ll leave it alone. What I’m looking for are good recommendations on how to cool my system – bigger fan, watercooled fan, good case fan (I tried a case fan, but it didn’t help at all, not even a little, so maybe I need a better one?), or something. I’ll probably be looking to spend somewhere in the $100 neighborhood, and I’d like to get the most out of that money. I know I can get a water-cooled fan for about $75, but that still leaves me with the same power supply, and I’d like to not go that route if you guys that know think that a more powerful non-water fan, or a good case fan, would help that out.
How do you know it’s a heat problem again? If it’s a power source problem underclocking often helps as well. Sounds like you should try a good new powersource first, and if that doesn’t do the trick, try something else. The older Volcanoes are at the limit of their envelope with a 2100+, if you want to replace it the Vantec Aeroflow is the bee’s knees from waht I hear.
This motherboard autodetects the speed – the only thing I had to set manually was the system bus, 100 or 133 MHz. It’s registering like it should, as a 2100. As for how I know it’s a heat problem, when it locks up and I have to reset, I’ve been checking temps as it starts up in the BIOS, and it’s consistently at or above 50 degrees C when it locks up. It doesn’t lock up when it’s cooler…Though, like I said, I do get occasional fatal errors or, often during Warcraft III, an abrupt restart. Those sound like power issues, don’t they?
Hmmm…That’s interesting. It does seem to lock up hard every time it approaches that temp, but I have power issues, too, so I suppose that could be the problem.
You really shouldn’t run into errors with an Athlon XP until maybe 65 degress C or so. Maybe even higher.
I’m not sure how your temperature is being read, though: is this case temp, or the CPU temp?
Replacing the power supply would be the easiest solution at this point. I would suggest that the HSF was maybe not quite put on properly - a common problem with people building Athlon machines - but it sounds like you’ve already been there and done that.
Other sad possibilities are that your CPU is just plain bad. Hell, those sort of non-committal lockups and restarts can be bad motherboard or RAM, even. Still, I would start with the power supply. Get a decent 400watt+ supply, they’re not that expensive. Even down at your local Best Buy or something it should only be like $60-70 (and they’re going to totally nail you on price. Ordering on the web will save you lots).
As for a case fan: proper case cooling is getting to be more and more important. It’s all about moving air THROUGH your case, the more air the better. Common practice is to have a fan up front blowing inward to draw in cool air from the outside, and a fan in the back up high, by the CPU, to blow air out the back. I suggest, where possible, getting bigger slower moving fans rather than smaller faster fans, because the noise these things make start to add up.
If the house fan makes the errors go away 100% of the time then it does appear to be heat related.
However, a new, quality power supply could never hurt-- it’s a good investment as it can be carried from system to system and it never (ok, well, rarely) becomes obsolete. I have definitely seen low/sketchy power affect stability, and it is consistent with what you are describing.
Alright, then – a new power supply will be first on my list. If anyone wants to give recommendations on case fans, they’re pretty cheap, so I might try a better one (or two) of those, as well, but maybe you guys are right – maybe it’s not heat related. The house fan has made a huge difference, but it’s still not 100%, so maybe it’s not a heat problem. Sure seems to be, though, so maybe I’ll pick up a new CPU fan, as well…But it doesn’t sound like you guys highly recommend the water-cooled fan vs. a cheaper, regular fan…I’ll just make sure it’s a good one.
Voltage problems usually cause lockups and reboots. However, the only accurate way to read voltage is with a voltmeter. Don’t trust your motherboard BIOS readouts. Can you swap powersupplies with a friend for a day or two to see if you have the same problems?
Faulty RAM can cause memory exceptions, lock-ups, and failures during booting. If you have two or more memory sticks, remove all of them but one. If you have the same symptoms, take out that memory stick and put in another. If the problems go away, you may have a bad stick of RAM.
Athlons are rated up to 90C. 45C - 60C are regular operating temperatures for an Athlon. Again, you can’t trust your motherboard BIOS readouts to be exact. Add an extra 5 - 10C to whatever it says just to be on the safe side.
Cooling. Unless you’re overclocking, a Volcano 6cu and an exhaust fan in the rear of the system are more than adequate for cooling an Athlon2100. You can go wild with fans, but you’re just going to drive yourself crazy with all the fans whirring in your room.
If your CPU reads 50C after it crashes, it doesnt mean that the temperature was the cause. All it means is that your CPU was doing actual work before it crashed.
There’s a make of Gigabyte motherboard that doesn’t feed enough power to the video card, so the computer locks up during 3d games. Your motherboard isn’t a Gigbyte board, is it?
You don’t need a fan at all. I’m currently using a modified koolance setup; I replaced the shitty (and noisy) original pump with a Eheim something or another. With the cooling fans unplugged, it stays in the 60-65 degrees Celsius range.
Never locks up, and it’s almost completely silent.
The only reason I suspect heat at all is that is used to be really, really bad, until – upon Wumpus’s recommendation – I set a house fan aside it, blowing in, to cool the system, and it worked 99% better. I know that an Athlon should be fine at 50C, but that seems to be where I consistently have problems. (If the “add ten just to be safe” rule is to be followed, then I’m closer to 60, which seems even more dangerous.)
That said, I’ll probably start by replacing the power supply, and see what that does. Might look into a decent case fan, as well – I don’t think my poor case will hold two of them without serious modding, and I don’t know that I’m ready to do that yet. Any recommendations on a good case fan?
Oh, and I’ve got an ECS K7AMA mobo, for those who wonder.
I’d alomst suspect the RAM as well. One of the ECS K7S5As I had didn’t play nicely with Crucial DDR. Only way I could get some semblance of stability was to clock down the FSB/Memory. So that could very well be your problem as well. It’s so hard to diagnose these kinds of problems over the internet, the most effective way is generally to replace suspect parts with known good ones. That isn’t much of an option for most people who don’t do that for a living.
