Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: eagl on September 23, 2005, 03:18:58 PM
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I forgot how hot those old thoroughbred athlon XPs really were...
I had ditched an athlon XP 1.4ghz in favor of an XP 2000+, and found that the 2000+ was a bit cooler even though it ran faster. After swapping it out for my A64 though, I'd forgotten all about how hot it used to run.
I'm currently building up a winxp media edition media box, and I'm using my Athlon XP 2000+ as a the basis. First off though, I could barely fit it into the old steel case I had available. It's a super high quality copper heatsink popular for overclocking and uses an 80mm fan, but it's within 1/4 inch of the power supply and the fan had to be installed after the mobo was installed due to clearance problems. Tight fit.
I switched from an older, noisy fan to a new ball bearing, thermally controlled 80mm fan, because I had forgotten how hot these run... Now the fan is running at about 2700 rpm and the cpu is well over 50C. I hope it remains stable so I don't have to swap out the fan to something unsuitable for a media box. The heatsink is too hot to touch so I know I have a good contact between the heatsink and the cpu...
The other part I'm a bit concerned with is that due to having some trouble getting all the pieces together, I'm going to install win XP media center edition without having all the media components installed. For example, the microsoft remote won't be installed, and the winPVR video capture card won't be installed initially. I'll also have to install an add-on USB 2.0 card later since the mobo is a bit old and only supports USB 1.x. I'm hoping that if I get a stable windows installation with most of the hardware installed (vid card, sound card, networking, etc), then adding in the capture card, usb, and remote later on won't be too difficult.
Anyhow, I'm at 53% of a long NTFS format on the new 300 gig hard drive and I figure I only have another hour before the format is complete. I hope I haven't put the cart before the horse here...
Here's a nearly complete parts list. You guys can let me know if I've boofed anything.
ABIT KR7A RAID mobo, not using RAID though.
Athlon XP 2000+ cpu at 1667 mhz
512 meg PC2100 DDR SDRAM
Nvidia GeForce 4 4200 128 meg
Generic "good" pci sound card with all sorts of inputs and outputs, optical and copper digital spdif in/out, etc.
802.11B wireless NIC so I can put it next to the tv without running wires
generic 10/100 realtek network card that I'll remove once the installation is complete
WinXP Media Center Edition
Sony DRU-510A DVD recorder
Generic CDRW drive
300 gig Maxtor diamondmax 10 ultra ATA
floppy
To be installed later:
Generic USB 2.0 controller
hauppage winTV (winpvr 200?)
Microsoft remote
I'll probably remove the realtek 10/100 nic because I need the pci slot for the usb controller and don't plan on running network wiring to the tv.
Did I miss anything? It won't do HDTV (damnit) but the vid card does have digital output so I hope it looks ok on my plasma screen.
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Well, it crashed at 62% of the format. Back to the drawing board.
I'm underclocking the cpu to XP1900+ speeds and undervolting to 1.5v. Maybe that will help.
At the time of the crash, cpu temp was over 56C measured from underneath the cpu.
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That's a bit warm. Probably overheating surrounding components, which caused the crash.
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I don't even have the case cover put onto the chassis... It's open on both sides and the top.
After lowering the multiplier to 12 from 12.5 and dropping the voltage to 1.5v from 1.6v, temps in bios dropped from 56C to 52C. Hopefully that will be enough. I'm not sure what will happen when I put the case lid back on though... I really don't want to have to mod the case with a blowhole just to get it to run. It's a pretty old steel case from back when a 300 mhz P2 was the best thing on the street, so it's not exactly designed for a large thermal load. It was considered an enthusiast case back then and there is room for an 80mm intake fan and some cooling holes on the back, but the PSU is too close to the top of the cpu heatsink and there is no way to improve airflow around the cpu without a serious casemod effort.
Keeping the entire system quiet is important if it's going to be a media center box. I have a quiet hard drive cooler installed so that isn't a problem, but now I'm concerned that it may not run at all without additional cooling and that gets noisy.
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eagl, is there enough room for a 'dead air' fan? Such as the Zalman fan kit with the bracket for mounting a fan (92mm or 80mm) internal to the case.
Thos kits are extremely quiet and do a remarkable job.
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There isn't really any room. There may be room for one of those small radio shack squirrel cage fans at the top, but all the pci slots are filled so there is no room for a slot fan. There is a little clearance at the top of the case but no air outlet so I'd have to cut a hole in the top of the case. I have a dremel tool but making a nice looking round hole would take a very long time with the tools I have.
Mostly the noise of extra fans is what I'm concerned about. I think I'd rather underclock the cpu than add more fans. If noise wasn't a concern, I'd put in a higher flow 80mm fan on the cpu and accept the high case temps but I can't go hiding a hoover behind the tv and expect the wife to not notice.
The athlon XP 1900 came stock with 1.5v so if it's stable at that speed and voltage, then I'll just leave it. I will add in a quiet 80mm intake fan but that only blows air at the pci cards so it won't help cpu temps much. If it lets the system run stable though, I'll be happy. Hopefully I won't be pushing 100% cpu load most of the time and that should help a bit.
edit - 66% and counting on the HD format. Another 45 min...
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No, no, the purpose of the 'dead air' fan is just to move air around in the case. Not move air into or out of the case.
I use one in my system and it cooled my RAM, Northbridge, and back of the video card by almost 15 degrees across the board.
The bracket mounts on top of the PCI brackets where they attach to the back of the case and then it is bent to where it will go over the top of the PCI cards. A single mount point for the fan attaches the fan at the end of the bracket and it can pivot around on that mount.
It is a very low volume fan. You cannot here it from the outside of the case.
A picture is worth a billion babbles. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118204)
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Yea, that might fit. The bottom of the case is actually pretty open. I could probably even fit a water cooling setup in there without any trouble. Did I mention that this was a budget operation? :)
The only new components for this were the cheapo sound card, the vid capture card, and the hard drive. Everything else is from my spare parts closet. If I was doing this "right", I'd have an HTPC case that matched my stereo, at the very least a new NF7-S mobo (refurb $40ish online), and the build would go from there.
If I was doing it RIGHT, I'd have an HTPC case, a microATX A64 mobo with A64 X2 3800 cpu, a huge heatsink with a slow 92mm fan on top, etc. I just don't feel like spending the money. Wasting my time whacking away at the old gear can be rewarding if I can get it to work in the end...
To get a $9 fan from newegg costs an additional $16 shipping due to my location. The 80mm intake fan option I already have will blow pretty much right on the same spot that the dead-air cooler you linked would blow, but from the front of the case instead of right on top of the pci cards. I've tied up the excess cables to help airflow too.
It's an old inwin case. Sort of a short/wide mini tower.
The first test is to get windows to install with the case lid off. After I can get it installed and some temperature monitoring utilities installed, I'll put the lid back on and see what's going on. There is a secondary temp probe near the pci slots so I should be able to get a decent picture as to whether I'm doomed or not, depending on how hot the mobo probe temp gets compared to the cpu temp.
80% formatted and counting.
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I did figure out one thing I was forgetting... Any buildup goes much smoother when drinking the elixir of life, mtn dew. Code red tastes better but doesn't have the mystical properties of the original dew. I'm opening a 20oz bottle now and I expect smooth sailing from here on.
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Always have to have your favorite 'builder beverage' at hand. Failure to comply means certain doom when the switch is hit.
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The format finished, but it hung at "checking disk size". I put a fan sitting right on top of the heatsink blowing across it, and I'll try again with a quick format this time.
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Update
Windows installed ok but it crashes if I remove the extra 80mm fan sitting on top of the open case blowing onto the side of the heatsink.
I'm not sure what I want to do about it. A casemod or total case swap is probably going to be required. I may try to construct a duct from some of the existing vents, put in a fan, and duct the fan across the heatsink. Not sure if I want it to blow in or suck out... I'll get better cpu cooling by blowing in cool air and that would overpressurize the case which should help exhaust hot air through all the other vent holes, but it's not elegant. The cpu overheating is definately the problem. It locks up tight at around 117-120F.
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Update
I tried reversing the cpu fan and it seems to help a LOT. Temps are down over 15F and the heatsink is still pretty warm but not too hot to touch.
I think the proximity of the fan to the power supply was making it so that the fan is unable to blow air over the heatsink. But when reversing it, case air is drawn through the heatsink and blown into the PSU, and then the PSU fan ejects it out of the case.
Of course, once I do that and see the temps falling, the computer immediately becomes less stable for no reason. I'd already run it overnight with prime95 and memtest, but I figured I'd go with memtest again and sure enough, it looks like one of my 2 sticks of ram is failing...
It's only pc2100 but nobody even sells that stuff anymore, and it's well beyond the original 1 year warranty. 256 meg DDR is just a bit low for an HTPC box I think. I'll give it a shot but I may be doomed.
If necessary, I'll up the memory voltage and see if it runs ok at a higher vdimm. Crucial memory is usually rated at 1.8v and I think it defaults to somewhat lower than that, so maybe I'll get lucky.
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Originally posted by eagl
Update
It's only pc2100 but nobody even sells that stuff anymore, and it's well beyond the original 1 year warranty. 256 meg DDR is just a bit low for an HTPC box I think. I'll give it a shot but I may be doomed.
If necessary, I'll up the memory voltage and see if it runs ok at a higher vdimm. Crucial memory is usually rated at 1.8v and I think it defaults to somewhat lower than that, so maybe I'll get lucky.
PC2100 ddr ram @ newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Manufactory=&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=524%3A7861&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&description=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&SubCategory=147&Submit=Property
whels
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Yea, 256 meg sticks of DDR are under $20 at newegg, but the point was pretty much to reuse older parts to make an htpc sort of media computer.
The computer simply won't pass memtest test 5 on either stick. I've reduced memory timings, reduced FSB, messed with voltages, tried using different memory slots, and nothing has worked. Running prime95 now results in the computer locking up with a blank screen after about half an hour.
Any more money into this is just throwing good money after bad. I'll reuse the hard drive and the fans, but I just don't know which parts are good or not. It's possible that the video card could be causing the windows crashes completely independently of the memory or cpu, or maybe it's just the mobo that is bad. I have no idea and I'm not going to throw money at this thing to figure it out.
Damn shame... I have all the parts for a nice HTPC but I can't get the basic computer stable.
:furious
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eagl, I got a PC2100 stick I'm trying to get rid of. It's about a year old and only 256MB. I'll send it to ya free.
By the way, just for the "what the hell" purpose, get your biggest house fan, plop it next to the computer, and turn it on. Does wonders but looks very smurfy. :D
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Thanks OOZ. Maybe it will help.
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Turns out it is most likely a cpu heat problem. I got the computer stable in the sense that it wouldn't flake out running any particular bit of software, but eventually it would crash, quicker if under heavy load. Reversing the cpu fan helped but not enough. I took another case fan and just laid it loosly on the top (side) of the heatsink and set it to run, and it ran prime95 torture test for over 12 hours where before it would ALWAYS crash after no more than 4 hours.
It looks like a permanent fix is going to involve a new case, or abandoning the parts. Since I last had this cpu/mobo in a premium case and NEVER had any cpu heat problems, I didn't realize how close to the edge it was thermally. I've tried undervolting and underclocking the cpu but nothing works except the added cooling, but this case is just set up wrong. Way too old-skool. There is no way whatsoever to get a decent heatsink and fan on top of the cpu because of the power supply interference.
I do have an old P3 celeron 1.4 ghz and mobo that worked ok in this case but it's a bit weak for a full-featured htpc box. In a test I did a couple of months before, it just couldn't encode mpeg2 without dropping frames and that's no good.
I just don't want to waste any more money on this because at some point I'd be better off buying an A64 barebones and starting over, and that defeats the whole point of reusing parts that aren't fast enough for gaming but are still fast enough for other stuff. A decent case that wouldn't look like crap will cost me at least $80, $130-$170 if I go for an HTPC styled case.
Ah well... At least now I know what the main problem is.
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Thermal grease can have a big impact -- both the quality of the grease and its coverage and the fit of the processor. Slight variations can have major impacts on heat.
I got some arctic silver 5 and it works great.
One suggestion is a small PCI slot fan. I got one for a very tight media box with heat problems like yours and it works great with virtually no noise. Can't remember which one, but newegg specs and reviews should help find a quiet one.
Charon
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Eagl, if I may make a suggestion, as one cheapskate to another?
I built a socket 754 setup for the wife about 6 months ago. For one reason or another she didnt like it. It was a little A64 2600+ processor and some old RAM I had. I took it, and swapped the processor for a 6600GT video card, figuring I'd keep using my XP 2600+ for now and save the other motherboard and case for an upgrade. Well, now I need one.
The motherboard only cost me 40 bucks. 754 boards are dirt cheap right now. And the new 64 bit Semprons absolutely ROCK for as cheap as they are. They are just 90nm A64s with the voltage dropped down to 1.4 from 1.5. Sure they are a tad slower than the same number A64, but not by that much. Great budget processor/motherboard combo. I should finish getting everything together in a couple weeks. I got screwed on the 6600, so all I have is my old FX 5900U. Point is, the CPU and motherboard together were barely over 100 bucks. Thats almost Athlon XP combo prices, and getting the 64 bit processor.
Oh, and of course it runs soooooo much cooler than the old XP.
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Charon,
I have AS5 on the heatsink/cpu and it must be a good thermal connection because the heatsink gets hot as heck. There just isn't enough airflow right over the heatsink itself due to the zero clearance between the heatsink and the power supply. The case isn't even put together so a pci card fan probably wouldn't help. What it seems to need is airflow directly onto and across the cpu heatsink, and there just isn't any easy way to do that with this case.
If I had one of those heatsinks where the fan blew across it from the side, maybe it would work but I don't have one of those and I don't want to throw away money by buying yet another custom socket A heatsink.
SoA, a socket 754 solution is a good idea for this kind of application. Those boards and cpus are probably the best "budget performance" parts out there IMHO, and I think they'd be perfect in any HTPC. I've looked at those 754 combos pretty hard, and almost got one. There are even some microATX ones that would be spiffy in a custom HTPC case.
The main problem I have is that I have a lot of parts but to really "finish" it off as a nice HTPC would cost me nearly $400 because my only extra case is totally unsuitable for modern ATX boards. Even a cool running pentium M or A64 might not work. And if I get a new case, I'm going to get an HTPC case which right now is a minimum of $150 for one that holds an ATX board and is even marginally usable. I've read so many reviews of HTPC cases that simply don't have room for normal components that I'm a bit afraid to buy one. The only good reviews, including pics that show you can actually plug in the hard drive without snapping off connectors and stuff, are for cases that cost well over $150.
Yea, if I bite the bullet and make the investment, I'll probably go with a new-build A64 mobo (AGP or integrated video so I don't have to buy a new vid card too) and a nice htpc case. Might need a new power supply too. My old memory is DDR so hopefully it isn't bad, and the failed memtest is just due to the old VIA memory controller on the old mobo.
With the extra fan blowing directly on the heatsink, it just passed it's 16 hour on prime95 torture test. I've done the torture test using both the "max heat" and "blend" settings so both the cpu and memory have had at least 12 hours of hard work, without failing. It ran a 3D graphics screensaver for 8 hours so the video card isn't causing heat related crashes either, and I got a score of about 9900 in 3dmark2001SE without glitches so overall the system is "healthy" I think.
A side consideration is that winXP would probably nuke my license certificate if I migrated it to a new mobo. I hate microsoft. I have 6 legal winXP licenses but can only use 4 of them due to the hardware changing beyond what microsoft says is legit for an OEM license. Change the hardware too much, and they won't unlock the license anymore. Bastards. I'm TRYING to do this legally but they'd rather I switch to linux than let me use the licenses I paid for.
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Why? I've upgraded my motherboard 3 times on this copy of XP alone, and they've always restarted it for me. Granted the copy itself locked me out and I had to call tech support, but they gave me a new code each time and got me back up and running. Just as long as you have a good reason (like an upgrade) they cant refuse you. Your end user license clearly states you can install your copy of XP on as many computers as you like, just only on one at a time.
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The OEM license is different, and that's what I have. The OEM license is good only on the computer it came with. I suppose technically that means that the $3 wiring harness that my OEM license came with must be in the computer, but they haven't managed to put serial numbers on wires yet so I guess I'm breaking the law.
Seriously, I had to go up 3 levels of supervisors the last time I swapped out a mobo for a winxp oem license, and I'd rather not try that again because the definition of "the original computer" is left entirely up to MS.
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Originally posted by eagl
There just isn't enough airflow right over the heatsink itself due to the zero clearance between the heatsink and the power supply. The case isn't even put together so a pci card fan probably wouldn't help. What it seems to need is airflow directly onto and across the cpu heatsink, and there just isn't any easy way to do that with this case.
Eagl, if you have an old case with a "vertical" power supply - try simply taking off the PS cover. It helped me in exactly the same situation. Now the "guts" of the power supply are exposed, so I usually pull out a power cord before gtting into the case with a screwdriver. Power supply boxes usually are made of two pieces, you simply unscrew it and remove the part that doesn't have mounting holes and a fan, it gives you extra space for a CPU cooler.
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Boroda,
Interesting solution, but one of the big heatsinks inside the power supply is just a centimeter from the face of the heatsink fan, even with the power supply housing removed. I'd be blowing hot power supply air onto the heatsink.