• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Idle CPU Unstable

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

GunnerMan

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2004
Location
Albuquerque, New Mexico
To make a long story short after a few days of messing around I finally figured out my CPU at 3Ghz will not stay stable at idle but as long as I have Orthos running it's stable as a rock. One guy said is because when it's at load I have possitive temps but when it's idling it is cold and "microscopic" water forms on/in the cpu die causing the cpu to go haywire. Any thoughts?
 
If it is an AMD cpu you might be running into the cold bug. I doubt it has anything to do with water freezing. If anything, the water would be more conductive in liquid form rather than frozen.
 
Grrr, I hated my AMD processor when I went from water to phase initially b/c of the coldbug. Other than doing as JamesXP said, there's really no solutions -- most AMD processors really dislike the cold. I believe it's thought to be the on-die memory controller.
 
do you know if the older amd's (athlon xp 3200+) have the same problem? do i need a much needed upgrade? :D
 
Yes, I have decided to run F@H for Team 32 :p. Anyways it seems the problem gets worse the higher I clock. I don't know normal temps for this "phenominon" to occur but my cpu idles around -12 according to bios and in Windows if I let it idle at 3072Mhz for more than say 30 seconds I get a freeze. At 3000Mhz I at least seem to have a few minutes. F@H holds my cpu at around 4C and Orthos brings it up to 9C load. No problems.
 
Cold bug can be anywhere. Usually it's less < 0C but I have seen it above 0 before (my old Opteron 144). My Opteron 148 cold bugged @ -45C.
 
Wow, it's kind of annoying because as I said it gets worse at higher clocks so when I made the push for 3.1 I couldnt do it because the bootup did not tax the cpu enough to cause a heatload. Are there any ways to calm the problem besides maaking my phase run warmer or increase cpu vcore?
 
Good idea. I think I have found my limit around 3100Mhz or so. After that it seems I need more Vcore but when I add more vcore it pushes my cpu temps up towards 20c. I need my cpu to be colder but it wont stand to be cold. I tried the reverse side and put in up to 1.6Vcore to see if it offset for the temp rise in stability through voltage to no avail. What is the max safe vcore to go through these things for bench runs etc?

I think I will buy a chilly1 evap this comming Monday. I have no idea what a good load temp would be at 1.475v and 3ghz with R290 but I get About 7C. If I go past 1.5v those temps shoot up to 15-21C
 
Not many options out there for ya bud. It's sad to say but the coldbug was never "cracked."

Maybe it's a good reason to upgrade to C2D? That's what I did!

PS - If you tune your build a little bit more both in charge and cap tube you'll be able to acheive colder temps, but obviously that's not exactly what you're going for atm. Also make sure you check superheat/subcooling while tuning. If your temps jump that much with only a little more load you might be undercharged which (even at the current load you're at) is bad on the compressor.
 
I have yet another problem tyhat sounds like an embarrasing and noobish error but I have to ask because idk how to fix it. Now I am usre I am leak free, it holds pressure for 24 houras plus and yet every day when I go to turn it on it wont get cold. I need to add gas to it to get it running and then evacvuate some to bring the pressures down on the lowside. Doing this everyday is kind of a hassle and makes it impossible to get a good tune. Most people claim they need to have a static pressure of around 75PSI for it to condense in their phase, I need 130-150.

My only guess is I have to little space in my low side so when I turn it on there is not enough substance in the lowside for the compressor to pull in and compress to condensable pressures. I do have a pretty large cond. I am using a 3' flex hose though. Also thanks I will check my superheat/subcool but as I said I seem to have a horrible design flaw in my A/c conversion phase. I hope K10 does not have this damn problem.
 
Back