Athlon XP 1700+ (voltage & heat)

[Topher_LS]

I recently purchased a new Athlon XP system at a local shop. I don't know anything about building computers myself, so that was my best bet.

I was having problems with it rebooting itself & the shop just put in a new powersupply for me. I'm wondering if it's running too hot or with too much voltage.

I have:
Asus A7v266 Mobo
Athlon XP 1700+ (not overclocked)
Enermax EG 465P-VE PS (just put in)
GeForce 3

When I boot & go into the BIOS Hardware Monitor it shows:

MB temp 26c
CPU temp 55c

vCore 1.86v (it's set to 1.8 in the BIOS though)
+3.3v 3.39v
+5v 4.96v
+12v 12.46v

The voltages were 3.2, 4.8 & 12.1 before the new PS was put in today.

To me it seems like 55c is a bit hot for the CPU, but AMD's site seemed to say 90c was the max for the XP chips. Personally, I would think it would fry at 90c.

[RedDeathDrinker]

Drop the core voltage. It should run fine at 1.75 volts. That will lose a lot of heat.

My XP1500 (1.33GHz) is running at XP1800 speed (1.5GHz ; 10*150)) at 45C core temp on 1.78v

I use an Alpha PAL8045 and an 80mm YS-Tech fan......

[RedDeathDrinker]

Here's what mine is running at:

[Sonny]

A lot of Motherboards add some voltage automatically to cure some instability when someone uses a below than avarage PSU. Your ASUS seems to have a +.06V, on mine it's a +.1V, so if you set it at the BIOS at 1.7V you will actually get 1.76V. I have some concern regarding your 5V rail. We got the same PSU & the 5V looks a little low. Now the best thing to do is set the VCore properly to control your temps then do a stability test like Prime95 & multiple loops of 3DMark2001 & test your 5V with a multimeter during this. The tolerance is suppose to be ±.25V but when you start pushing your system for extreme performance you are not going to want that to go anywhere below its rated voltage. The higher the better.

[RedDeathDrinker]

And forgive my rudeness.....

Welcome to the forum, Topher_LS.......:beer:

[Topher_LS]

Thanks for the advice & the welcome.

How can I set my core voltage lower? 1.8 is the lowest setting in the BIOS.

I'm also pretty sure the heatsink & fan are the stock ones AMD supplied with the chip. After some reading, that may be a large part of the problem as they seem to be crap.

[RedDeathDrinker]

At those speeds, get a Glaciator 2 or an Alpha PAL 8045.......

[Topher_LS]

I checked out the Glaciator 2, not only does it look really cool, but it's rather cheap too.

Sorry for my newbie questions, but if I've never done anything other than add a video card/harddrive to my computer, should I try installing a heatsink by myself?

[RedDeathDrinker]

Originally posted by Topher_LS
I checked out the Glaciator 2, not only does it look really cool, but it's rather cheap too.

Sorry for my newbie questions, but if I've never done anything other than add a video card/harddrive to my computer, should I try installing a heatsink by myself?


Hell yes. It's not hard, just follow the instructions to the letter.......

Use some good quality thermal goop between the core and heatsink (in fact, see [url]http://www.overclockers.com/ and click on Heatsink reviews and tips for some lovely details.....)

[Topher_LS]

The Millenium Thermal site says it "Includes 0.6 gm Arctic Silver II Premium Thermal Compound". I assume that would suffice.

*goes off to order one*

Thanks again for the advice!

[freshy98]

My 1700+ @ 1900+ does 31C idle and 34C load. voltage is at 1.8V and cooling is done by a ThermalRight SK6 and a Delta38 fan blowing towards the heatsink.
Getting higher in speed soon when I get my Corsair PC2400 2 * 256MB.