Have we become obsessed with temps?

[13oots2]

Having read these posts for a couple of months, it's set me wondering about "high temps". It seems that AMD's max temperature for a nonclocked Athlon of 1000Mhz and above is 90C-95 C, it's even printed in the stepping code on the die (see attachment).
Until I joined Overclockers.com I didn't pay any attention to my Athlon 900 temps. When I did it was running at 67 C and had been for over 9 months, no lock-ups or problems whatsoever. Trying to get these temps down I fried my trusty old 900, got wires stuck under the HSF. Plus it's cost me about $70 for more cooling in addition to a new TB.
I've seen plenty of postings of how people have chipped cores, left HSF's off, damaged MoBo's and other mishaps trying to lower CPU temps. But I have yet to see a posting saying my CPU died because it had been running at 65 C with a retail HSF.
Also plenty of postings saying that Athlon/Durons are running in high 50's even 60 C with no problems, with the cry "Are my temps too high?" It seems a contradiction that more damage seems to happen when trying to reduce temperature, than running at 60 C. If stability isn't an issue, what's the problem? Alright there is a small perfomance increase and life expectancy to consider, but is the risk worth the gain?
If my Thunderbird is unclocked and dies at a temperature lower than 90 C, I'll return it to AMD. Just how many years do people expect their current system to be in use for?

 

[Kingslayer]

I somewhat agree with you that sometimes people get a little excited about temp. But you have to remember that extra heat can cause instability in overclocked machines. Even if its below what Intel and AMD say is their max temps. That is why people get in a tizzy about it.

There are also alot of guys that water cool their machines. They need to watch their temps like hawks because it just about the only indicator that there is a problem in their cooling system.

Overclocking stability is a main cause of us trying to get our systems as cool as physically possible. Yes we have become obsessed with temps, but there is a method to our madness.

 

[Harry]

I also been working on lowering my temps on my 900TB even went as far as buying ASUS A7V133 board. Running three fans and my temps are still at 50C CPU 32c MB . I will still try to lower temps but running @ 990 MHz and stable for now. Computer room is 29C

 

[William]

I don't trust amds max temps simply because many cpus have been fried below that temp. The highest temp i know of an amd surving was 78C i believe from a mistake spode had. Lower temps do matter. You can overclock higher, cause fewer problems, and extend the life of your cpu. If you are running over 60C you need to get them lower, thats just too hot. Sure its within the AMD limits, but most chips seem to fry in the 70s. If your ambient temps go up somewhat or a case fan dies, you're screwed.

 

[Randy]

I agree with William, I want my case and Cpu temps as low as possible so that I have some headroom when the ambient temps gradually creep up all summer long. This way I can enjoy my o/c and not have to keep clocking backwards as ambient temps increase to maintain stability.
Randy

 

[Flash]

I think high temps are less critical if you aren't overclocking, but they make a big difference if you are. First of all, lower temps will let you clock higher. Second, lower temps will make your overclocked machine more stable. In my case I can run at 1.54ghz with a max temp of 47.5C, but at that temperature my machine isn't stable enough to complete the Prime95 torture test. If I lower my temps by 2C I can complete the test. Consequently I'm obsessed with lowering my temps by at least 2C. But there's a very good reason for it.

While we're on the topic of obsession, though, here's what baffles me. I see people spending scores or even hundreds of dollars to overclock a Duron 900 to 1.2ghz when they could spend less money and replace the chip with a 1.33ghz Tbird that will be both faster and more stable. What's up with that? To answer my own question, I think that for alot of people overclocking is an end in itself.

 

[William]

overclocking is fun, its not just about getting the fastest chip in the world but its also about pushing your system as far as it can go. Its a lot more fun to spend the time to get that 900mhz Duron to 1.2 than just plop a 1.33 chip in and sit back and play. Plus a lot of overclocking is spent on getting a good system up, not just the actual chip. I am plopping around $250 to build my new case for my computer. I could just get a better chip, but this case will be ready for the next generation of chips and overclocking and that is what I want.

 

[Bender]

Yes we are obsessed. My duron 600@1104 2.0v runs at 52 ambient and maxes out around 60 with an Alpha Pep66. I hardly care since the thing has been stable for so long.

 

[outhouse]

if your going to overclock your going to have to cool your PC more its a fact of life, no one said that theres no risk here but most of us here are willing to take the chance, this is our hobby and most of us get allot of enjoyment out of tweaking for lower temps and higher MHZ, i would not call it an obsession.

 

[JML]

Why spend so much on cooling to overclock when we could just buy a faster chip? Easy, if I had a 550mhz processor, I would want to overclock it. And if I had the fastest processor available, I would want to overclock it. Like William said, its not so much about having the fastest chip as it is the sport of overclocking itself. And as spending lots of money of cooling goes, the cooling system is something I will move from my machine when its old to my new one, and just clock the old one back to its original speed.

 

[13oots2]

I think my main point has been misunderstood. Say for example, I had a Thunderbird 1000 running at 1200 and the temperature at load was 50-65 C with a retail HSF approved by AMD to 1.3Ghz. The system had been stable for a couple of months before I started noticing various sources telling me my chip was in grave danger. Is it? Has anyone had an o\ced chip die at those sort of temps? If not, where does this information come from, specialist HSF manufacturers perhaps?
If I then posted my temps, I would be told that they were far too high and the chip would be likely to die, go and spend as much money as you can afford. So off I go, panicked with credit card in hand to buy new case fans, HSF, thermal compound and monitoring
equipment/software.
Then the ordeal, cracked chips, slips with screwdriver, static, fans not plugged in the list goes on. Why?, it was all working fine. If I wanted to go faster different story.
I'm not trying to annoy people with this post, I tend to question where information comes from.

 

[JML]

Well if your system is as at the speed you want and your fine and stable, then there's no need to cool it down any lower. I think I lot of us on here try to overclock as high as we can go, thus using a lot of high end cooling equipment and such, so a lot of people here aren't used to seeing temps in that range, and when they do, they think they are way to high. I see what your getting at- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

[Matatoshi]

people running with temps in the high 50s to low 60s may be running perfectly fine for now... but who knows, it could just be a matter of time before we see lots of posts about cpus dying because of prolonged heat. these processors haven't been around for over a year yet, and these so-called "heat problems" are long term. if the cpu dies go ahead and send it to amd, but i think most people want to avoid the problem in the first place. if all it takes is a new heatsink for 35 bucks, so be it. but if the person wants to go all out and buy a ton of fans, and monitoring devices AND overclock, they better realize the dangers that lie ahead.

 

[CalCoolage]

13oots2 (Jul 15, 2001 03:44 a.m.):
I started noticing various sources telling me my chip was in grave danger. Is it? Has anyone had an o\ced chip die at those sort of temps? If not, where does this information come from, specialist HSF manufacturers perhaps?
.

Some people have not been reading the warnings about the socket temperature probe. It does not read the die temperature, but is necessarily lower. In addition it is uncalibrated, so the connection between real temperature and the reading is unknown. Different manufacturers are known to "compensate" differently in the BIOS, and separate monitoring programs may do their own. In short, the home user does not know the die temperature. The spec sheet info is for system engineers who have the equipment and the expertise. If you over voltage the CPU, forget about even that maximum.

If I remember the specs correctly, maximum die temperature is not the same thing as recommended die temperature. AMD is claiming you WILL DAMAGE something if you exceed the maximum, not that the CPU will perform correctly at that temp. You should notice a lot of system crashes before you cause any die damage. Unfortunately, if something like the fan fails, there may not be much time between the two.

If you operate at the rated clock speed, the temperature at which instability starts to occur can be very high. I once stopped the fan to see how hot the CPU would get before it would crash at normal clocking (800MHz) but I chickened out before it crashed (165F). The die temperature of course must have been higher
.
I also cooked the heat goo into something weird looking due to a failed HSF mod, but the CPU still functions error free. Heat goo is not as tolerant as AMD's die.

One reason people want to know the "normal" temperature even though they are not OCing is to make sure they did the HSF installation properly. Sometimes the sink is not making good contact.

 

[Greybeard49]

Every electronic item will last longer if it runs cooler. That includes your TV, Stereo, car system, etc. Therefore if you want longer life, the cooler the better.
In my case the 1.2G I have will lock up at about 55 on the Asus A7v. So it is somewhat out of necessity that I look at all the info on temps.

 

[13oots2]

If I manage to give up smoking, will invest in a Duron 750 for the purpose of cooling experiments. Am considering passive cooling with heatsink only, I know this sounds like madness. But I would like to know if my TB 1000 would survive if the fan failed while I was out

 

[Flash]

I also think that the "long-term" arguments are kind of silly, as in "while you might be stable now, in the long run the heat might kill your chip." Let's face it, in a year or two you're going to want (if not need) the newer/faster cpu, which will probably also require a motherboard change.

Of course you can always use the old cpu/board in a backup machine. But if heat kills your cpu after, say, 18 months, it'll be so old in cpu years that you'll be able to replace it for next to nothing. In other words, you'll spend more cooling it for long-life than it would cost to replace it if it eventually expired from heat exhaustion. And frankly I've never heard of a cpu crapping out from running at high-but-stable temperatures. As the original poster said, it's *much* more likely that our cpus will die from our efforts to save them.

There's nothing wrong with overclocking for the challenge of it (as opposed to for practical reasons), just so long as the person doing it recognizes the true motivation, or doesn't lose the forest for the trees. Personally, I enjoy the challenge but I wouldn't do it if I couldn't either save money (Celeron 300A @ 450mhz) or achieve speeds not otherwise attainable (Tbird @ 1.54ghz).

 

[outhouse]

13oots2 (Jul 15, 2001 09:54 a.m.):
If I manage to give up smoking, will invest in a Duron 750 for the purpose of cooling experiments. Am considering passive cooling with heatsink only, I know this sounds like madness. But I would like to know if my TB 1000 would survive if the fan failed while I was out

IF you want to kill it go ahead with your experiment as thats what your going to do, thats a nice chip to be playing russian roulette with. Also one note we have over 7000 members and there are only a small percentage that have destroyed there equipment trying to improve there cooling system and if they would ahve took there time and followed directions none of this would have happened most people are in a rush and do not head warnings and then yes mistakes do happen, and another thing if i ran my p31g at 50C or higher it would fry my CPU no dought about it, remember most people use onboard thermistors for measuring temps and they are not accurate most people running at 35C under full load are really running at 40C if relying on the thermistor reading. I still and always will recommend better cooling if there is a need for it, there is no place in the overclocking world for stock cooling period.

 

[Wa11y]

J#$u$ m07h3r fsck1ng Chr1$7! AMD says the max temp is 95*C?! CELSIUS!! For those of us in the States, that's 203*F! THAT IS TOO HOT!

 

[Kryten]

13oots2 (Jul 15, 2001 03:44 a.m.):
I think my main point has been misunderstood. Say for example, I had a Thunderbird 1000 running at 1200 and the temperature at load was 50-65 C with a retail HSF approved by AMD to 1.3Ghz. The system had been stable for a couple of months before I started noticing various sources telling me my chip was in grave danger. Is it? Has anyone had an o\ced chip die at those sort of temps? If not, where does this information come from, specialist HSF manufacturers perhaps?
If I then posted my temps, I would be told that they were far too high and the chip would be likely to die, go and spend as much money as you can afford. So off I go, panicked with credit card in hand to buy new case fans, HSF, thermal compound and monitoring
equipment/software.
Then the ordeal, cracked chips, slips with screwdriver, static, fans not plugged in the list goes on. Why?, it was all working fine. If I wanted to go faster different story.
I'm not trying to annoy people with this post, I tend to question where information comes from.

Let me put it this way if someone suggested to you that you may have cancer would you heed this advice or ignore it because you feel fine.
Can see your point though is it over reacting or just being cautious I would say a bit of both happens here.