Big jump in temp.

[Mitch]

I recently bought an 850Mhz Duron processor. I booted it up and everything works fine. I have an Abit KT7 mb with the VIA hardware monitor that tells me then temp of my processor. When the computer is not working that much, the temp is around 30 degrees C which is great when it is about 72 degrees F in the house. But, when I run CPU intensive programs the temp jumps way up to 48 degrees C. I have tried everything to lower the temp, (reapplying the heatsink and heatsink compound) but it always jumps 17 - 18 degrees. I had a Duron 800 before and that would run at about 32 normal and 37 - 38 with CPU intensive programs. Could I have a bad processor or is it the hardware monitor that is messing up? The computer has yet to crash so I don't think it is that close to over-heating.

[Hoot]

Sounds to me like the HSF, while capable of dealing with the wattage your CPU develops at idle, runs out of "head room" at high load wattages. I've seen transitions in the Duron of up to 10C, though 5-7C was more common. What HSF are you running and what core voltage is the 850 running at? I assume you are running it at 850 Mhz? What system temp does Via HM show?

Hoot

[Gunjaa]

My Duron 800@933 runs at 52c full load,under no load it only drops 1c or 2c. im using a thermoengine hs/f,with a blow hole and fan blowing on back of cpu socket. ive reseated my hs and added themalpaste instead of pad but still same.im convinced that they just run hot.the surface area of a duron is a lot smaller then a thunderbird so it doesnt help.

[Hoot]

"A lot smaller" is in the eyes of the beholder. Yes, the Duron core is smaller than the Tbird, but when you sit them side by side, it's really not what I would term "a lot smaller".
That, having been said, I see bigger temperature swings with my Tbird than with my Duron, especially at high vcore settings. The Duron, on average runs hotter than the Tbird at the same frequency and vcore. From what I can tell, the halt-on-idle software I have does not seem to work on the Duron. You can definitely see it "kick in" on the Tbird and hence the big swing in temp, once it starts working, I have yet to see a version of any of the cooling software packages out there that lets you choose Duron or Tbird. K5, K6, and Intels up the wazoo, but not Duron or Tbird.
So, to bow out of this reply gracefully, though you ideally want to get your temps in the 30-40C range, if it is running reliably for you at 48C, don't sweat it.

Hoot