Overheated AMD
I’ve recently experience my first PC heat problem. I�ve read about them, but never thought they could happen to me. In May of 2001, I built a completely new system with an AMD Duron 800MHz (mines the one on the right), and got a �Twister� CPU cooler (Looks like an orb) that gave me 17CFM and 5K RPM on the fan. This is by no means a �hardcore� (see here for hardcore)fan/heat sink, but it did the job.
Now, with PC parts falling like a rock, I just had to add more stuff. So I got a 1.2GHz Thunderbird, Arctic Silver II thermal paste, and a blue CPU shim about two months later. I read that the shim would keep you from cracking your CPU, and I remember the first time I installed the heat sink, I was afraid I might…
Well, putting the new 1.2G in with the blue shim, new thermal paste, and my current cooler didn�t go so well. It only booted once, and after hours of CMOS resetting and chip reseating I couldn�t get it to even POST. So I RMA�ed the new 1.2G and slapped my 800 Duron back in with the new spacer and paste.
For a week from that moment, I would have one of the most miserable troubleshooting events of my life. See, I�m a gamer, and there is one thing you don�t keep from your gamers… games. I had been playing the new Diablo II Expansion Pack a lot lately, and the moment I fired up my PC I started have lockups. BSODs, boot errors, Diablo II locking up my PC, MP3 ripping getting a GPF. You name it, and I experienced it.
For days I was frustrated with the random mood swings that my PC would have. And after reseating all cards, and running some diagnostics, I was going to try a Win2k CD repair… but even booting from the CD caused it to lockup. I had enough… I took a break, and started to read some UseNet posts about my symptoms, when I just happened to run across one that said to ensure your temp was ok. I thought �I�ve got the heat sink on it… and it�s worked fine for the last three months.� So I didn�t check it right away, but later, after I saw no resolution in site, I checked VIA Monitor… and it said my CPU was currently running at 55c. Now I remember it sitting around 30c idle, so I did a MP3 rip from CD to get my CPU working (wonder how hot it would get at 100% utilization)… and the temp went up to 70c!!!!!!!!!(AMD says it will melt at +90c) I stopped the ripping before doing real damage, and realized that HEAT was my problem! Which explained all the random faults during CPU intensive games and boot-ups.
But why? I ensured I didn�t have any unusual BIOS settings, and proceeded to undock my cooler, only to notice that the CPU core had barely transferred any of it�s thermal paste to the cooler… meaning that they were not even touching! Then I realized that it was the shim that was causing this by keeping the heat sink from sitting down all the way (see pic). It seems the Twister had a small ringed ridge (looks like the seam of two different metals) on the bottom that was hitting my shim, and keeping it from contacting the core. After removing the shim, and reapplying paste and all, my PC works just like new, and I probably sent back a perfectly good 1.2G (now I feel stupid).
So, the moral of the story… don�t play around with CPU heat! Respect your fans and heat sinks. I spent my PC support days on 286�s thru sub ~100Mhz Pentiums. Back then, 33Mhz didn�t even require a heat sink.
Needless to say, I just ordered a Thermo~~~~ to ensure my 1.2GHz Thunderbird will run as cool as possible. See the review of the Thermo~~~~ here, and a comparison of it to the new Volcano II here.
