Heat issues w/ AMD/Athlon?

Hi,

I'll be getting a new system soon.

I've been doing DAWs for 15 years now. Twice I've gone for Athlon systems and twice I've had incredible lemons. All relating to overheating. My last AMD system was a liquid cooled system purchased about 5 years ago. I nursed it along for about 18 months. It was down for about half the time I had it. I had to send it to the manufacturer twice and on the third massive crash just gave up. I've had at least 3 intel systems. All have been flawless, beautiful systems that you could leave powered on all day in a hot room and have zero problems.

Obviously I'm a little hesitent to try AMD again.

But I look around and spec-wise it's obvious that the specs on Athlon dollar for dollar are far superior to Intel.

But then I go to amdzone, and it looks like cooling issues are still an issue. And I go to monarch computer. Their intel systems are available with stock intel cpu fans. For their advanced athlon systems, they make you buy a third party cpu fan, mostly in the $50 range. It seems obvious that monarch doesn't trust stock AMD cooling solutions.

I'm probably NOT going to go for an AMD system this go around. But I'm nevertheless entertaining the idea again.

Is there any definitive evidence that AMD has improved their heat issues?

I want a stable system that I can leave on all day in an 80 degree room. Is such a thing possible with the advanced athlon cpus?

Thanks,

Ian

They do seem to run pretty hot it's true, I've had a few amd processors, the barton cored ones have allways been the best IMO the semprons run hotter than I am generally happy about (the one in my SFF 'net box clocks up to 65c and thats got a quite nice aftermarket akasa heatsink on it) but the barton 3200 in my DAW wth a zalman flower on it settles down at 55-60c even with a good caning. (the old 2400 was much better heat-wise and never really got above 50 even on a hot day)

All of these boxen are stable (well the 'net box is actually debian unstable but it still works ok ;-)) even when running hot, I believe the max limit for these chips is 80c so whilst I'd rather it be 45, 65 is still well within 'normal' parameters

I've not made the leap to 64bit yet so I can't comment on how those perform heat wise but ultimately a surf around the various forums ( I think the soundonsound pc music forum is particularly good) should give you some ideas about how to put a quiet and powerfull DAW box and help you to think about whch areas you need to spend money on and where you can settle for compromises

Child

Yeah I agree, I am a converted cynic on the RAM front, pay the extra for quality RAM and even get stuff that is overspecified for your motherboard, you will be repaid many times over in stability.

Child

I have my doubts about AMD too. Have always had Intel until now. First I blew up an AMD Athlon 64 3700+. Well, maybe I broke one of its small legs dealing with fan replacements due to high temperature. Not wanting to spend that much money again I replaced it with a 3200+. This usually runs around 60 degree C when I use like 35% of CPU continuously. And you often do with DAWs. I have Zalman CPU fan, extra cabinet fans etc. 2GB of Kingston RAM.

Probably my next CPU will be Intel.

I have an overclocked A64 3200+ system. Stock speed is 2.0 Ghz but I'm running it at 2.4 Ghz. No heat problems at all. Idle temps are around 32-34 C, load temps around 42 C. This with stock cooling.

Prior to that I had a Pentium 4, 1.4 Ghz system which ran a bit hotter - around 40-45 C. Still nothing to worry about.

I also have an Athlon XP-M 2400+ laptop (1.8 Ghz). Doesn't get too hot and I can actually use it on my lap. Some laptops start burning your legs after a while.

I've never had problems with either AMD or Intel systems and I've had at least three of each.

Mine starts around 40 degrees and rises from there. Could it be that temperature is not measured correctly? On the other hand it feels hot when touching it.

AMD Hot?

as Wogg said not since the XP chips. particularly the thunderbird 1400.

the tide has turned awhile ago. Intel runs much hotter than AMD now.

the heat is why Intel
1) canceled the P4 4.0G and cant get past 3.8G
2) have dumped present Net burst /P4 architecture for the "loosely based on P3" newer Centrino/Sonoma.
even thier upcoming server chips will be like this.

AMD still has room to grow speed wise. as they run so much cooler

Scott
ADK

I've been building ( building myself ) amd rigs since my first k6-2 400.
Never had a problem with heat or stability.
Buying good heatsinks and fans and using thermal grease proves to work well.

Steve

ORIGINAL: jcschild


AMD still has room to grow speed wise. as they run so much cooler

Scott
ADK

Then why is my Athlon 64 3200+ typically running around 60 Celcius?

Nope. I have checked it all. Only thing I can find is that the Athlons perhaps sometimes report incorrect temperature, or my mobo does. But I have installed new flash update.

ORIGINAL: tombuur

ORIGINAL: jcschild

AMD still has room to grow speed wise. as they run so much cooler

Scott
ADK

Then why is my Athlon 64 3200+ typically running around 60 Celcius?

My system specs: Athlon 64 3700+ socket 939 (San Diego), 2G OCZ Ram; MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard, Matrox P650 video card, Seasonic power supply.

CPU temp idles at about 40 Celsius; it peaks at 50-51 Celsius after running Prime95 all night.

The Athlon 64s generally run very cool, especially compared to something like an Intel Prescott P4. (That design runs so hot that Intel killed all future development, writing off over USD $1 billion of investment in the process, and switched to a core design based on the Penium-M series). I was a staunch Intel user for 20 years, until my latest DAW, but technology moves on...

Earlier-generation AMD chips did have heat issues, and no effective thermal overload protection mechanisms; Intel was pioneered non-suicidal CPU designs. But the Athlon64 is a completely different story.

Tombuur -- if your temp temp is running 60 Celsius, something is wrong. I'd check thermal coupling to the heatsink. I assume you're using round drive cables (rather than flat), and have good airflow inside your case? And some supplementary fans (preferably low noise) to keep air moving well?

Extra care is needed to make sure that thermal coupling is actually as good as it should be. Both choice of thermal compound and application method are important.
In my case --- I bought a tested bare-bones system from Monarch (CPU, RAM, motherboard) with the stock AMD fan installed. I also bought a Thermalright XP90 heatsink/fan (Monarch doesn't ship bare-bones systems with oversize heatsinks on them, to avoid shipping damage to the motherboard). Why the Thermalright, since the stock fan cools the CPU perfectly well? I wanted a quiet system, and the Thermalright (and Nexus 92 mm fan) deliver. (The Seasonic PW, fanless Matrox video card, and Samsung drives are also important factors, of course.)

Anyway --- to install the XP90, I used Arcticlean to remove all of the "factory stock" thermal compound, then used Arctic Silver with the XP90. If the original thermal compound isn't removed properly, thermal coupling can be significantly impaired.

FWIW -- I built my wife a lower-powered system using an AMD Sempron; it's been great.

A very pleased AMD customer.

- Jim

Edit: updated temperature measurements

Open the case and look at the CPU fan for a while. Sometimes they keep stopping and restarting.

One last thing (which just recently "bit" me);
Some BIOS gives you the option of using "quiet fan" (or some-such wording",
My system was constanty over-heating (and freezing up) due to this feature...
The CPU temp would go up and the fan never kicked on...
I only discovered the problem afer installing a monitor which constantly logs
the fans & temps...
The fix; reset you BIOS to standard settings and DO NOT turn this feature on...

>been running fine at ~42c (full load) no prob...

Walt

A few ideas...

There might be inadequate airflow in your case. Make sure there's a clear path from the intake (usually front bottom of the case) to the rear exhaust. Move cables out of the way as much as possible. Many cases only have an exhaust fan and no intake fan - maybe you need an intake fan to pull in more cool air. If the computer is sitting on a carpet, depending on case design you might need to elevate it so that the intake holes aren't blocked by the carpet.

Thermal paste should be applied very thin. More is not better. I had a CPU that was running hot. The supplier had installed the heatsink for me. I removed it and there was thermal paste all over the place! What a mess. I cleaned it with alcohol and applied a paper-thin layer - CPU temp dropped several degrees. Added an intake fan and got a few more degrees cooler.

ORIGINAL: eikelbijter

Just make sure you get a good case and put in some good ventilation. I believe in 2 or 3 slow spinning 80MM fans. Go AMD and you won't regret it!

Rico

My case, for example, is a Thermaltake Xaxer III... clearly a gaudy gamer case, but I love it. It came with 7 (seven. that's right, you heard me) 60mm quiet fans. two on the back, two on the front, two on the left side opposite the CPU fan, and one on the top pulling out. Plus the one on the power supply. The brushed aluminum case actually gets quite cold to the touch.

Quite a step up from the last prebuilt computer I had, which was a compaq, and inside of which I ruined a new PCI video card through overheating before I realized that there were no case fans in it.