Re: Freeze-ups. Is power supply the only remaining possibility?

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:15:06 GMT, Not Here <nothere@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mon, 08 Oct 2007 03:00:29 -0400, Paul <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Not Here wrote:

So are you saying, it is 32C when sitting idle in Windows, and
then zooms up to 70C if you use a program that loads the CPU ?
Like Prime95, Orthos, CPUburn or the like ?

No.
I only recently started monitoring temperatures. I left the computer
running Orthos overnight the night before last. In the morning the
system was frozen. I installed Speedfan and it was reading 70 C. At
the time I didn't know that was high, but when I educated myself I
pulled the HSF and found the blackened remains of a thermal pad. That
is there was hardened black stuff on the silver colored pad. In my
ignorance I greased the pad and CPU, booted to Windows with a steady
temp of 30-32. That was last night. Booting this morning and ever
since I get 30-40 in BIOS and 70 in Windows. It doesn't gradually
climb there, it is the first reading I get.

What kind of CPU cooler are you using ? The retail one that
comes with the CPU ? A third party one ?

Standard Intel branded. The fan consistently runs about 2800 rpm.

You've already mentioned that the thermal paste looks like it
is being spread by the applied pressure of the heatsink to the
processor. Is the heatsink secure on the socket ? Do the clamps
or fasteners hold it securely in place ? Based on the progress
in the thread so far, it sounds like you've thoroughly
examined the mounting issues. In which case, I'd look
for a different cooler, if nothing else is working out.

If both the idle and loaded temps were always high, that
might be software. But if the idle reads 32C, and the loaded
shoots to 70C, there are two observations to be made. One would
be, that the thing was capable of reading a low temp, and the
32C shows you that. And stopping at 70C is also significant,
because that is the temperature where an Intel processor would
start to throttle itself (drop internal clocking rate). So all
the symptoms are consistent with a correct temp reading, but
a heatsink with poor overall performance. Like the fan isn't
spinning :-) Or maybe only one corner of the heatsink is
touching the CPU.

To observe throttling, you can try RMClock. Looks like there
is a new version (I was using 225).

http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml
http://cpu.rightmark.org/download/rmclock_230_bin_upd1.exe

There is a screenshot here, of RMClock and the monitor tab.
If the "throttle" (purple) is lower than the "clock" (red), then
the processor is probably throttling, trying to keep the temps
below 70C. I'm not really crazy about their graphing skills,
but this is one of the few programs than might detect
throttling when it happens.

http://www.notebookforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8955&stc=1&d=1143767059

Paul

The throttling makes sense.

Graham

OK. First the good news. Intel used to use a black material for a
thermal interface. It looks like lamp black or carbon. That is
not ordinary paste that has gone bad. What you are looking at,
is the original thermal interface solution from Intel.

(I had trouble finding anything even close. It is like this one,
only the gasket would be missing, the pad would have larger
dimensions, and be flat black in color and texture.)

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/232/heatsink_bottom.jpg

You are supposed to remove all the material, not just the black
carbon-like material. You want the base of the heatsink to be
available to you. If the heatsink is pure aluminum, you want to
see aluminum before you apply the new paste. If the heatsink
is aluminum with a copper plug (circle of copper) inserted in the
aluminum, then you want to be seeing bare copper before applying
the paste.

The idea is, the solid metals are the best conductors of heat. The
Intel foil material, once deformed or scratched, is not nearly
as good.

Lucky me, I still have my original S478 processor retail heatsink,
still in the plastic carrier :-) I never used it, because I bought a
third party heatsink instead. When I look at it, there is a pad
which is 1.75" by 1.5". It consists of the black material, on
top of a foil carrier. Now, if I was going to use this cooler,
I would remove the foil plus the black material. I think that would
leave me with solid aluminum under that. Then I'd apply the thermal
paste, install on the processor, and test it.

Some pastes take a couple days to settle and give their best
performance. But even so, there should not be a close to 40C swing
in temperature. That means you still don't have good contact or
a good thermal path for cooling to take place.

There is only one kind of paste I wouldn't use. Radio Shack used
to sell a zinc paste in silicon oil, and the paste is white in color.
The carrier runs out from where you put it, and I was never happy with
that stuff (used to use it on audio power transistors).

Typical paste products would use suspended Boron Nitride particles
as the main material. Arctic Silver Ceramique might be an example.
Arctic Silver AS5, adds a bit of silver to that, for a theoretically
better heat transfer. But many pastes are within a few degrees C of
one another in performance - the most important thing, is that the
paste not be "pumped out" in short order, as then you'd have to
reapply the paste.

Thanks to throttling, your processor was never in danger. And if
the heatsink falls off a modern Intel processor, the THERMTRIP
signal is supposed to turn off the computer.

HTH,
Paul

So I just got the system up again, Speedfan showing 69 C, did a reset,
entered BIOS setup and got 34 gradually rising to 39. Hard to believe
it could cool that much in less than a minute.

If I'm not overheating then it's back to what else is causing my
freezes.

This all started when I got this machine from a friend who didn't want
to fix it (now I know why). At first it would run for long periods
from CD but would freeze doing anything demanding, like installing XP
or booting to Windows. With Paul's advice and the visual clue of 2
obviously blown capacitors next to the CPU, I replaced the caps and
everything was fine for a few days. Then the freezes started again and
maybe I got off on a tangent with this (bogus?) overheating thing.

My naive hope is that maybe the third cap beside the 2 I replaced is
also going but not yet blown. Should I replace that as a wild attempt?

Graham

Addendum to my post just above

There is definitely something wrong with the temp reporting here.
I just rebooted after siiting in BIOS setup for 10 minutes at about
40C and got readings in Windows of 16??? to 22 C, motheboard at 30-32.
Now the room I'm in is about 18.

Graham
.

Relevant Pages

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