HELP! Athlon heat related problems !?!..

[daver343]

Ok, Im running a new Athlon 1ghz 266fsb on a DFI AK76-SN (ddr) board with 256mb DDR ram.
I just bought the game Max Payne today, however during play it crashes.
That is, it crashes after say 5 minutes or less of play. When it exits, my temp for the TBird are 50c +. Could this be the cause??
My motherboard has the hybrid AMD 760+Via 686b chipset. Is that the problem?? Please HELP!!!

[jeff_harrison_344]

Yes that is definately a heat issue. What you have to do is pick up a better HSF then the stock one you have now. I suggest www.coolerchips.com

My advice, dont get anything lower than 18 bucks for your socket HSF :)

[SleepyKat]

Do you know what brand of heatsink fan combo (HSF) you have? If you have a generic then it's a high probability that temperature is a problem.. with a generic no name brand, the HSF is able to transfer the heat away from your chip at idle and low activity but with you load the cpu such as gaming, the chip generates more heat that the HSF could pull away. Several of my friends uses generic HSF on their TB but they mostly surf and do not put much load on the processor chip.

If and most likely when you replace the HSF, be carefull. There are several good article in O/C to walk you thru.

[eobard]

Not to sound like a broken record or one trick pony but if heat is the problem I suggest using a duct. Not instead of a high quality sink/fan combo but in conjunction with. Make a temporary cardboard sleeve or side for your case and cut a hole in the cardboard over where the cpu fan is. Tape a cardboard tube to the inside of the temporary wall going from the hole to the fan. Make sure its all taped down tight and that there is no bits of tape dangling inside the case. Tape it to the case frame where the metal door would go then boot up and check your temps under the same conditions as before. If the room with your computer is at a fair temperature your temps under load should drop by 5c or more. This could help you confirm if heat is your problem and it will only cost you some tape, some cardboard and at most an hour of time.

good luck

[daver343]

Thanks forthe help. This Friday Im gonna invest in a FOP-38. See when I play max payne, what happends is, I'll be playing fine for like 10-20 minutes then out of the blue the computer restarts. Either that or it crashes back to the desktop. Now, its not an IRQ conflic cause they each have their own IRQ. Im thinking what you guys are, heat. Just so you know, I also have 2 extra case fans, + 1 slot fan taking heat away from my geforce-2.

There is 2 other things. One, im using a 300w Deer power supply. Could my power supply be the source, and also I have too a sound blaster live. With the live in combination with the Via 686b south bridge, could that be the problem? Thanks.

AMD Tbird 1ghz 266fsb
DFI AK76-SN (ddr board)
256mb DDR 2100 Azem ram
Creative GeForce-2 GTS 32mb DDR
SB-Live X-Gamer (non 5.1)
harddrive
cdroms......etc etc

[eobard]

SB LIVE!s and 686bs have a strong reputation for not getting along well together (and I had my heart set on getting a LIVE 5.1!) If you've got a spare sound card then perhaps you should swap it and then test things, It might save you some money on unneeded case modding that would be better spent on a replacement sound card.