Stability Question

Me again, with what is probably another stupid question

I have been running Windows XP pretty much since it was released and have never seen the old blue screen of death, until 2 days ago.

I recently set up my Athlon 1.33 to overclock at 1463 and installed MBM5 to keep an eye on it. It ran smoothly for about 2 days and then while i was playing a game it crashed and jumped to a blue screen saying that there was a problem with the hardware or software. I reebooted and it was ok.
A few hours later I rebooted the system and the screen came up during start up with a "Fail to initialise stage 3" error. This time I had no option other than a complete re install

Again everything was runnig smoothly but on about the 4th reboot after installing my usual software I got the screen again.

I have now reset the cpu to 1333 and not installed MBM5 and so far (fingers crossed) everything is ok.

Does this ound like an overheating stability problem or could it be MBM doing something funny ? These are the only two things I can think of that I changed to bring on the problem.

Give us some more info to work with temps, multiplier and fsb, voltages etc. I doubt it is being caused by MBM5.

Ok sorry.

Its a AMD Athlon1.33 running at 1463 (11*133) Voltages were all as standard (I guess as I didn't alter any).

It was running at about 35-40c idle and 50c at a full load.

Other system info:

QDI Kinetiz 7E Board (VIA KT 133A Chipset)
512 MB 133 RAM

Do you need any more info?

Thanks for your help

Twizzle said:

Ok sorry.

Its a AMD Athlon1.33 running at 1463 (11*133) Voltages were all as standard (I guess as I didn't alter any).

It was running at about 35-40c idle and 50c at a full load.

Other system info:

QDI Kinetiz 7E Board (VIA KT 133A Chipset)
512 MB 133 RAM

Do you need any more info?

Thanks for your help

Click to expand...

No need to apologize it just helps to have the info right off.
50c is high even at full load 35c for idle isn't bad though. What heatsink and thermal paste are you using? Your core voltage should be 1.75 for stock settings. Make sure the heatsink is making good contact with the core, it should leave a small imprint in the thermal compound on the bottom of the hs if it has good contact.

Welcome to the forums!

My heatsink is a volcano 7 and im not using any thermal paste as the guy in the computer shop said i wouldnt need it as the volcano has some sort of special pad on the bottom which replaces the need for any (?)
I have also got an old fan in the back of the case blowing air out.

First off the guy at the computer shop is an idiot. Go get some ASIII and remove the heatsink. Clean off any of the thermal pad you can by hand. And what wont come off by hand use some rubbing alchol. You can use it on both the heatsink and the CPU. Use a qtip and a small amount of rubbing alchol on the qtip. Not enough to drip but enough to cover.

A thermalpad is not anywhere as good as thermalpaste, even the cheap silicon looking kind.

PS. Tell the computer shop guy I said he was an idiot. I hate them guys.

Lemieux is dead right. You might also check you power supply voltages, to make sure your 5v. line is not running low-(low would be, by general concensus, anything below 4.85v). Also, use MBM to log your voltages and temps over time, (you can set the intervals to any setting you wish), to check whether your voltages are going up and down, indicating either power supply or power line instability.

I was tempted to tell you to replace the thermal pad with compound in my previous post but didn't want to sound cocky or like an id10t if you weren't already using compound.
I agree with rlemieux but don't insult the guy at the store. It would be a good idea to explain to him that you have learned that the pads are terrible when used for AMD chips and arctic silver or other pastes work much better. This will help him to make more money, if he is wise.
You may want to install more case fans. One or two in the front and another one in the back depending on the room you have. You probably don't have enough air flow and your case temp may be high which will make it more difficult to lower your cpu temp, the cooler your case air the cooler your cpu will run generally.