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my system, Q on heat, critics

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hec

Registered
Joined
Jul 16, 2001
I don't have alot of extra money but i've been trying to put together a system for cheap that will be sufficient for the next generation of games, games such as doom 3.

I did some homework right around mid-year and I picked up an asus a7s333, and a geforce 4 mx 440, and 256 megabytes of pc2100 ram.

I set that stuff up a few months ago. I wanted to go fairly cheap with the board and the card so that I could get a good CPU, so yesterday I got an amd xp 2400. Okay so far so good, I put in the CPU yesterday and everything started off as planned. I decided i'd run it for a day at stock and monitor everything, get it worn in a little and to monitor my temps. Well my temps were at 40C exactly @ stock speed while it was just sitting there and at full load (running battlefield 1942 for over an hour). I set my asus probe so that it will shut it down if any of the voltage readings drop 5%, its set to shut off if the temp is 57C (lowest). Essentially, I gave it the least amount of slack to run away on me in case of a problem. Well today I clocked up the bus from 266(133) to 280(140) giving me 2100mhz. I looked at the temps when started up it says 40C, then I ran it in bf 1942 for an hour and I checked them very quickly and it said 40C. Okay so what am I missing here the processor doesn't create any more heat under full load than when relaxed, and the heat did not change at all from 2000mhz to 2100mhz. I take it this is a good thing. I just wondering how often this happens or if it is a common thing for overclocks this conservative? Anyways I overclocked the video card also from (core)270@320(memory)405@450. I mean this is all very good since it was pretty cheap and it seems to run stuff well. Right now i have a nice big fan on top of it and it is as sealed up as i can possibly get. My question is, what would be considered a safe course of action from here, should i continue to clock it up and see if it stays at 40C?? Or should i leave it, or should i go back to 2000mhz. I mean I don't exactly have alot of money to blow so if this thing blows up I might be using an old BCM motherboard, and an athlon thunderbird, and that would suck! lol, thoughts, comments, critics, please drown me in your experience. Also can anybody guess off the top of thier head what a system like this might do 3dmark2001. at 1027X768 I did roughly 7000 with everything stock. The OS hasn't been reinstalled for awhile or drives defragmented, its only 256mb of ram also so I imagine that this is not the optimum conditions for that benchmark. I would imagine with everything mildly overclocked and a reinstall that this could be alot better, i'm guessing at most 8000-8500. Maybe that is unrealistic I am not sure. :cool:
 
8000-8500 sounds pretty reasonable. I'm also using an old xpert2000 with a whoping 3d mark score of 1000 when its oc'ed 700 when its not. so take my knowledge of 3dmark scores with a grain of salt. I do know that most games like 512megs of ram so thats a good upgrade. also defragging your hard drive never hurts anything. as far as your temps go i'm worried that you show no difference between load and idle. not so much about the 100mhz overclock. did you burn it in yeah you did with 1942. try some prime 95 or sandra burn in and see if that shows temp change. also asus probe in my experience is not very accurate at all. I'd try motherboard monitor for the temps. hope this helps
 
i checked with CPU cool and it said my CPU was at 37c, and this was on idle. I am curious if this no difference between idle and load temps is a problem... the writer of the last post showed some concern about this so I just want to see if i can get a few more O/Cers to show some concern if they think it is a problem. Also is 40C a high temp for a athlon xp 2400?? I had thought that 40C was very low... It probably does need some more burning in actually, it has definitely NOT reached the point where it is seasoned and ready to take on extra mhz. I also forgot to mention I was running alot of quake tenebrae *rock on quake 1!*. I dunno if you've all seen this yet but it is quite popularly known as the quake 1 mod with a unified lighting system simular to doom 3. off subject- Anybody who hasn't seen quake tenebrae ought to check it out it is great!

Anyways when I stuck the heat sink on the processor, it had a strip of stuff on it, like thermal stuff, and i when it went on the processor I am just positive its sitting on the core exactly the way its supposed to be. Could this be whats keeping the temps 40C idle, 40C load... maybe i'm not giving it enough load either. I mean if the heat increased during load at the core, the heat should leave the core almost instantly and go onto the heat sink, which i cool with several fans. Perhaps it can be explained by effective heat transmission? Is it just an amazingly cool processor... or houston do we have a problem.
 
Okay I thought bout this a little bit... I wrote a quick burn in program that uses numbers and logical operators to create a series of numbers, and then it shuffles them like a deck of cards 1 to 1 until they arrive back where they started, and then it takes the numbers back apart again...

I been running it for like 20 mins now and the temp is still 40C asus probe, 37C cpu cool for the CPU.

I have been checking out my voltages and I'm using this power supply from an old comp and I realized that this power supply is probably not good for an OC. My 5v voltage is at around 4.9 during idle... and when its running this prog at 2100mhz it drops down to 4.811. The core voltage for the CPU is 1.632. It seems to be very stable like this too. My new question is, though it is probably not a good idea to OC it any more than I have with this power supply, maybe i'm in a voltage drop range that is acceptable for what i'm doing, as it will help keep it cooler, which explains why my load and idle temps are roughly equivalent. Also from running this prog I have just seen an increase to the CPU temp by 1 degree making it now 41 C. I want to make sure i'm not going to fall through the ice here. comments plz?
 
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