Broken processor and/or safe temps

[hellrazor]

I broke my Athlon64x2 4400+. Let's start with the whole story.

So on Sunday I was bored and decided to play Crysis, and play, and play, and play (for about 4 hours). At that time I knew that my CPU had a little temperature problem, but I wasn't thinking about it now was I? Anyways on Monday I spent an hour or so browsing the internet, got bored, and decided to go play Crysis again and about a minute into it the computer blue screened to Windows saying something about an unrecoverable hardware error. After a little testing it seems to me that it breaks under high loads (but my expertise in this area is between nothing and nothing), and decided to go back to my Athlon64 3000+. When I took the heatsink off of it I noticed that only about 3/4 of it had any heat goop on it :shadedshu and the part of the heatsink in contact with that part of the CPU seemed a little discolored. Anyways I swapped them out and am now running my 3000+.

I am not happy about this.

I hated the thing when I got it and still hate it now. I am a little impressed with it however, I clocked the thing from 1.80 GHz to 2.20 GHz (the x2 4400+ had this speed for each core) on stock voltage and it tops out at about 40C.

So here's the deal: should I move back to my x2 4400+ while making sure the thermal paste isn't so screwed up and underclocking+undervolting the crap out out of it (I'm thinking down to 1.6 GHz from 2.2GHz and 1.1v from 1.35v) or should I stick with the 3000+? And if I do stick with the 3000+, what should I go to? I heard 55C is a good temp to max out on, but I'm not sure.

 

[Depth]

Teleportation of ice from Pluto was a little vague, are you running it on stock cooling?

It shouldn't overheat if it's not overclocked even on stock cooling. Check heatsinks and fans for dust, including those on the case.

And are you sure the system is 100% stable on the 3000?

 

[Iceni]

I ran an X2 for a long time, They do tend to run a little hot.

You failed to mention what cooling solution your using. I was running mine on an absolutely massive thermaltake big typhoon, It would run passive without any fans on that thing.

Your also on a 939 motherboard. I have no knowledge of your particular board, but i do have knowledge of the 939 specification, and Nvidia nforce 3.

i Know for a fact the Nforce 3 has memory address issues running dual core CPU's that can kick up hardware errors, Hardware crashes and total system lockouts. There is no solution for this. It was because 939 went dual core very quickly, and the motherboard/chipset developers had not accounted for these larger memory addresses. Hence the very fast bounce to AM2 and new chipsets to counter the problem.

I mention this because your PC may have a history of been a little tweaky. And using a single core processor will remove all the problems that the above issue causes.

Also test the rig with something other than Crisis 2, that game has so many bugs it's not appropriate to rig stability testing.



Back on track.

the X2 is a far more capable chip than the 3000, Run it if you can get it stable. Temps on the X2's are pretty high, But provided you can get it running sub 70 degrees C it should not have a problem heat wise.

The chip overheating may have cooked it tho, Old heat sink paste drying up, and sub par cooling could have caused the chip to be unrecoverable.


If you find this to be the case i would strongly advise you do not spend any money keeping that PC running. Even a Budget intel or AMD from this generation is going to annihilate that rig.

 

[hellrazor]

Teleportation of ice from Pluto was a little vague, are you running it on stock cooling?

It shouldn't overheat if it's not overclocked even on stock cooling. Check heatsinks and fans for dust, including those on the case.

I ran an X2 for a long time, They do tend to run a little hot.

You failed to mention what cooling solution your using. I was running mine on an absolutely massive thermaltake big typhoon, It would run passive without any fans on that thing.

It's one of these.

And are you sure the system is 100% stable on the 3000?

I've been running Prime95 (64-bit) for about half an hour now and nothing bad (I also bumped it up to 2.25 GHz), so I think it is.

Your also on a 939 motherboard. I have no knowledge of your particular board, but i do have knowledge of the 939 specification, and Nvidia nforce 3.

i Know for a fact the Nforce 3 has memory address issues running dual core CPU's that can kick up hardware errors, Hardware crashes and total system lockouts. There is no solution for this. It was because 939 went dual core very quickly, and the motherboard/chipset developers had not accounted for these larger memory addresses. Hence the very fast bounce to AM2 and new chipsets to counter the problem.

I've never had that problem, but I don't think it has an nforce 3. Here's a page for it.

I mention this because your PC may have a history of been a little tweaky. And using a single core processor will remove all the problems that the above issue causes.

It's never really been tweaky.

Also test the rig with something other than Crisis 2, that game has so many bugs it's not appropriate to rig stability testing.

I was playing Crysis 1.

Back on track.

the X2 is a far more capable chip than the 3000, Run it if you can get it stable. Temps on the X2's are pretty high, But provided you can get it running sub 70 degrees C it should not have a problem heat wise.

Oh, it idled at about 50-something celcius.

The chip overheating may have cooked it tho, Old heat sink paste drying up, and sub par cooling could have caused the chip to be unrecoverable.


If you find this to be the case i would strongly advise you do not spend any money keeping that PC running. Even a Budget intel or AMD from this generation is going to annihilate that rig.

I wasn't planning on it (and haven't been for a while), and once I get some money/a job I'm gonna start building a new one.

 

[Iceni]

Originally Posted by Iceni View Post
I mention this because your PC may have a history of been a little tweaky. And using a single core processor will remove all the problems that the above issue causes.
It's never really been tweaky.

Your a lucky man I had to live with constant hardware crashes on my nforce3 for years. I got used the them in the end.

If the system is 100% stable and it appears to be so due to your running of prime95 then if you can't get the X2 running it's probably dead.

You could search and see if you can find a cheap X2 on ebay, You may get lucky.

 

[hellrazor]

LOL, an athlon64x2 4400+ is ~$60 and a 4800+ is ~$130. Screw that.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

You probably have a nforce4 board. I would try and stick the 4400 back in and run it at stock speeds and see how it does. I don't think you permanently damaged it. Gradually build up to full load. Then run crysis for a couple hours again and see if it's good. You shouldn't need to prime 95 it. Just boot and run it normal.

 

[AsRock]

LOL, an athlon64x2 4400+ is ~$60 and a 4800+ is ~$130. Screw that.

Not 100% sure if my 3800 x2 still works but i will be putting it up for free in a few days with a few other things.

 

[hellrazor]

It seems 2.25 GHz is the thing's limit.

You probably have a nforce4 board. I would try and stick the 4400 back in and run it at stock speeds and see how it does. I don't think you permanently damaged it. Gradually build up to full load. Then run crysis for a couple hours again and see if it's good. You shouldn't need to prime 95 it. Just boot and run it normal.

Fine, I'll try it tomorrow, but I don't have high hopes for the thing. On the plus side, if it fails and I put the 3000+ back in I'll probably be fully out of thermal paste.

Not 100% sure if my 3800 x2 still works but i will be putting it up for free in a few days with a few other things.

I don't know, it seems mom is gonna get me a janitor job at the school where she works if I don't manage to find one pretty soon. At $13 an hour it shouldn't be too long until I can at least get a mobo, CPU, and some memory.

 

[AsRock]

It seems 2.25 GHz is the thing's limit.



Fine, I'll try it tomorrow, but I don't have high hopes for the thing. On the plus side, if it fails and I put the 3000+ back in I'll probably be fully out of thermal paste.



I don't know, it seems mom is gonna get me a janitor job at the school where she works if I don't manage to find one pretty soon. At $13 an hour it shouldn't be too long until I can at least get a mobo, CPU, and some memory.

Pay the postage i don't care about the chip it just sits here doing shit. Makes no difference to me really.

 

[hellrazor]

Pay the postage i don't care about the chip it just sits here doing shit. Makes no difference to me really.

Yeah but then I'll use it for 2 or 3 weeks and then it'll sit around doing nothing over here. Doesn't do me a whole lot of good.

 

[hellrazor]

I put the x2 4400+ back in and was playing Evochron Mercenary for a little bit, and once the processor hit 70% it crashed. I took it down to 1.55 GHz and 1.3v and am currently looking for a stable clock.

 

[hellrazor]

Nope. Still crashed. I thought maybe the voltage was too low, so I tried it on stock voltage, crashed again.

Putting the 3000+ back in.