Athlon XP 3200+ overheating. Need cheap solution.

[Mugsy]

I recently shelled out the extra money to put the fastest cpu in that my MB could handle... an Athlon XP 3200+. And to go with it, I shelled out for a nice solid-copper heatsink: http://www.bytewizecomputers.com/images/fullsize/F3670326.jpg - It works okay, but the fan is low profile (60mm square by only 10mm high. Airflow ~23cfm) and the cpu has started shutting down due to overheating ("under" clocking it solves the problem, but I didn't spend the extra money on a 3200+ just to run it at 2500+).

I have an old 80x80x30mm cpu fan, which I could mount with an adaptor, but I hear the adaptors don't really work. Or I could get a high flow 60mm fan, but would that solve the problem? I hate throwing good money after bad.

Recomendations please (and a new heatsink is out of the question).

BTW: The sink is currently conducting using the original included thermal pad that came with it (I also put a drop of thremal grease on each corner). Would it make a difference if I used grease/paste instead of the provided tape? And would I have to srcrape the tape off before applying the grease?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tedster]

I used arctic silver and a fairly large heat sink. Athlons run hot - particularly the 3200. I don't recommend overclocking it. I burned out the one I had.

 

[Mugsy]

I used arctic silver and a fairly large heat sink. Athlons run hot - particularly the 3200. I don't recommend overclocking it. I burned out the one I had.

Did the Artic Silver help?

Also, I'm NOT overclocking the 3200+. I must "under" clock it to stop the crashing, but normally I run it at its normal/default 3200+ spec.

 

[Tedster]

Yes it helped. I also had a very large heatsink/ fan.

 

[Mugsy]

Some progress.

Yes it helped. I also had a very large heatsink/ fan.

Something wonderful happened yesterday... my computer crashed while running Linux!

Not usually good news, but I finally knew that it wasn't just a "Windows" or a driver issue, but that it was indeed a hardware problem.

Last month, I replaced my cpu with an Athlon XP 3200+... and bought a new all-copper heatsink to go with it, but it came with a miniscule 60x60x10mm fan.

Everything worked great until this past week when I started having trouble again. Turns out the tiny fan on the "3200+ rated" heatsink wasn't cooling enough. I spent all day today installing a larger fan on the cpu and adding a big 80x80mm case case (noisy bugger, but it works great), I also scraped the thermal tape off the heatsink and replaced it with quality thermal grease ("Arctic Silver 5").

All this dropped by cpu temp by 5'C and the case by more than 10'C. So far, no crashes... with the old video card that is. I'm sure the Radeon 9800 was overheating too. I suspect I was having two problems at once, which made it more difficult to diagnose. Removing the ATI 9800 left just the CPU-overheating problem... which I've hopefully fixed now. Once I'm sure, I'll put the ATI back in and see what happens.

Anyone else have trouble like this with Radeon's?

 

[Tedster]

I had a Radeon 9200 that started to crash after awhile. The video would freeze. At first I thought it was a driver issue, because it started when I updated the drivers. When I switched back, it worked fine for a while. However, this didn't last long, the old driver started crashing also.

 

[Mugsy]

When I switched back, it worked fine for a while. However, this didn't last long, the old driver started crashing also.

Hmm, definitely an over-heating problem there. And the 9800 runs much hotter than the 9200, yet still uses the same sink/fan. Yeesh.

A friend warned me against ATI. I thought he was over reacting.

 

[kimbo.ati]

Get a Delta fan 7000 rpm and you wont be able to think :haha: