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Cooling problem

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G

gwallen4

New Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2002
Location
SC
I built the following system several months ago:

Shuttle AK31 Rev. 3.1 Motherboard with VIA 266A
Bios Reflashed 02/03/02
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ CPU, not overclocked.
Cooler Master DP5-6131c CPU Heatsink and fan
Arctic Silver Thermal Gel

For the most part the system has worked well. However, when running some CPU intensive games, like Morrowind, or Operation Flashpoint, the computer will stall every once in a while for a period of about 90 seconds, then the game will continue.

Normal CPU idle temp is about 46C., but when the computer freezes, it's at 50C. Blowing a house fan on the open case keeps the temp at 47 or 48 C. and prevents the stalling, so I know pretty much that this is a heat problem.

I think the temp sensor is under the processor. Could it be that I am not sensing the temp correctly and the real CPU temp is much higher? I'm not sure why the computer should freeze at a temp of 50C.
 
A large part of your problem could be case airflow. if you don't have good case flow than the heat will build up around you'r CPU and cause a problem. get better fans like I did, it pulled my case temp down 17C and CPU temp 8C. Big diff when the case itself is at 50C, now at 33C. also, it realyl gelps to have 2 exaust fans behind the CPU, and soon I will add one intake over the CPU on the side pannel.

-Shaun
 
My mobo senses the temp the same way; I was up at 65c at one point (for a few seconds only, lol). I'd invest in a better heatsink/fan, and make sure you have good airflow through the case!!!

BTW, the CoolerMasters really suck... my friend has one, and he has high temps. :mad:
 
HEY my Coolermaster HHC-001 gets 46C on my XP2000+ But on my mobo there is a capasiter right tooching hte heatpipe sticking out of the sink itself, so its a tight fit.

-Shaun
 
Thanks guys. I had a feeling the problem was case airflow. I already had a case fan, but I'll do a smoke test and see where the air's going. May need to get some round IDE cables, too.

By the way, is my CPU stalling at the measured CPU temp of 50C. or do you think the temp is higher?
 
My video is a Matrox 450e-tv.

Now that you mention it the video freezes for 1-2 minutes at a time but the sound keeps playing, so maybe it is the video card.

Thanks for your help.
 
i have never heard of it but im guessing its putting smoke by your intake fans and seeing where it goes (to test the airflow) but now that i am thinking about this wont its airflow be different if the case's side is off? isnt that the only way to see it? (with it off)
 
You just use a piece of clear plastic to cover the side of the case so the airflow would be roughly the same as with the case side on.
Saran Wrap would probably do it well enough...and you got some smoke bombs leftover from the 4th?

Have fun, and don't get killed for stinking up the place! (hint: outside)
 
the problem is case air flow, But he's asking why it stalls at 50C when the cpu spec says anything under Athlon XP 2200 can handle 90C as it's max and that one can handle 85C at max temp. This means that either the temp sensor is wrong or it's nearly worthless as it doesn't measure the temp die center at all.


the heatsink is most likely heating the air around it by the ram and not circulating out...heating up ram is not good and will cause corruption that stalls the computer. Coincidentally, removing this heat pocket greatly reduces "cpu temp" ...but since nobody monitors the temp of ram it's not clear whether it's the decrease in temp of the ram or the decrease in temp on the "cpu" that causes the decrease in instability.
 
I don't think its RAM because after a 90 second video freeze, the computer continues where it left off. Corruption of RAM would probably cause an error.

I'm leaning heavily toward a video chip overheating problem. The Matrox 450e-TV has a heat sink on the video processor but no fan. It sits in the case in a position that probably gets little air circulation.

I'm thinking now that a fan that fits in a PCI card slot next to the AGP slot might help.

Right now I have an intake fan at the front base, and an exhaust fan mounted below the power supply and exactly even with the CPU. The power supply has air vents at the end and at the base adjacent to the CPU.

I haven't been able to find a suitable smoke source.
 
I had a similar problem before. I at first thought it was a heat problem, but after installing proper cooling, it still hanged. It turns out that the problem is the video card. I can't really help you because I don't know anything about the Matrox 450e-tv. Perhaps there are some Matrox boards around.

Your PC should be capable of handling 50C with no problems. I have stock cooling right now and my PC is 50C full load. XP 1700 on a MSI KT3. No problems.

One of the first things that I did to solve the problem was to try the PC on 2D and 3D games. For me, my GF2 MX400 didn't hang on 2D games, but hanged on 3D games. And I started to narrow down and fix the problem from there.
 
I'm convinced this is a video chip overheating problem after reading Matrox's troubleshooting forum.

I'm going to try to figure out some way to cool the chip which has a heatsink but no fan.

So, I started a new thread on "How to mount a fan on a video heatsink."

Thanks to all for your help.
 
Last Post:

Problem solved and boy do I feel stupid. I isolated the heat problem to the CPU by opening the case so that freezing would not occur, then placed thin pieces of cardboard one at a time around suspect pieces - video chip, RAM, chip set, CPU. Only when I enclosed the CPU was I able to reproduce the freeze.

I went to BIOS and found that it was set to warn me when CPU temp reached 50C. Apparently, the warning is that the computer slows way down (an "undocumented feature" of my MB)?

When I set the warning temp to 53C. the freezing went away.

I apologize for my ineptitude and thank everyone for their time.
 
similiar problem, turns out my gpu fan was so clogged with dust it jammed, cleaned and it runs...better still have air flow problems but i vote that its a gpu problem
 
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