PC Constantly Crashing - What Cause?

ixoy

I'm using the following system:

ASUS 978XV2.0 Motherboard
AMD 2500XP+
Antec Lansang 350W PSU

.. And the machine keeps crashing with a "MACHINE CHECK EXCEPTION", followed by a system dump which explains nothing.

I had thought it down to the fact I had too many peripherals connected: 2 DVD drives, 3 HDs, and a GFX card. But I've disconnected 2 of the HDs and the problem is more frequent than ever.

I now suspect it's the CPU overheating. I'm running ASUS Probe and, I'm not sure how reliable it is, but it's flashing a warning of 76C as the CPU temp. The fan is working above the heatsink but, after last checking, I found the heatsink very very hot to the touch. I'm not sure how hot it should be, but should it almsot be burning my fingers? Does this sound like a heatsink/heatsink fan problem and what's the best solution to avoid it? I'm using the default heatsink purchased with the chip.

ixoy

*bump*

Come on - any help here? Motherboard Monitor 5 also notes an increase in CPU temps but again I'm not sure how hot the CPU should be able to go and if this is the problem (CPU diode is currently 82 degrees according to it, 67C according to Asus Probe).

If it is - what's recommended? Some of those big cooler fans seem weighty and given I've a tower system that could have an effect. I've noticed a number of different models in Maplin and Peats - any recommended models (AMD is a Socket A type, right?)? Would I need to scrape off the old thermal paste if I was installing a new model and, if so, what's recommended for that given I saw nothing of the sort in any shop?

Don't let my child die on me...

the_syco

Gimme the 1st few lines of the Blue Screen of Death, if there is one. I can usually tell from that whats going wrong.

quarryman

80C+ is pretty hot.

Is this at idle or load?

Are you using the stock cooler?

What's the airflow in the case like?

Would I need to scrape off the old thermal paste if I was installing a new model and, if so, what's recommended for that given I saw nothing of the sort in any shop?

you'll need to remove the old paste from the chip.

here's a cooler

ixoy

I'm running it pretty much idle - just have Firefox open, MSN, and the probe utility. Half Life 2 caused it to blue screen pretty quickly and even running Media Player increases the temp.

I'm using the stock cooler that came with it, which I'd imagined would be okay for my needs but probably not when I added in all the peripherals. Still with only the one HD, 2 DVD drives, GFX card, floppy, and main CPU surely it should cope?

For the airflow in the case, I've left the side panel open. I cleaned out some dust on the case vents. The actual CPU fan has a fair bit of dust beneath it but that can't be removed easily and I assume is normal...

I checked in Event Viewer and was told this:
The bugcheck was: 0x0000009c (0x00000000, 0x8053f0f0, 0xc436c000, 0x00000136). Does that mean anything to someone?

quarryman

70/80c at Idle is a problem.

I'd suspect loose heatsink but you said it was very hot to the touch. Might want to try a new Heatsink Fan and make sure to apply the paste well.

The extra peripherals shouldn't increase the CPU temp that much (or at all).

Since the side of the case is off it can't be airflow.

Is it giving you 70-80c in the BIOS. When booting hit delete and go to voltage control section.

ixoy

I don't think there's a temperature monitor with the BIOS - I'm running Sandra and it says as much, and I've never seen it in the BIOS before.

Incidentally, what speed should the CPU fan be at? ASUS says 3750RPM which seems odd given that the commercial models I looked at, including the more expensive coolers, listed speeds of around 1200-2000RPM when surely they'd be higher. However, Sandra has an RPM listing of 938RPM, which is significantly lower. That's a massive difference in reporting.

Follow-up question: What's the best way to remove thermal paste if I need a new heatsink/fan?

Dempsey

The Heatsinkfan should be blowing air onto the heatsink, check the air direction. Did you apply proper amount of thermal paste? Some people forget to remove the protective plastic off the heatsink, did you forget?

ixoy

Dempsey wrote:

The Heatsinkfan should be blowing air onto the heatsink, check the air direction. Did you apply proper amount of thermal paste? Some people forget to remove the protective plastic off the heatsink, did you forget?

Yeah the fan's blowing the correct way. I didn't actually apply the thermal paste myself - a friend did it and I'm struggling to remember how much he applied and that he actually applied some. The machine was built in November '03 so I assume he did all that otherwise we woudl've seen the problem earlier.

Dempsey

What was the paste? I recommend Artic Silver 5, best on the market and their website will instuct you exactly how to apply it to your processor. It gives the best conduction. If he applied too much it can be as bad as not applying any.

You might need to just remove the heatsink clean it and the cpu reapply thermal paste and reseat the heatsink and make sure its on tight.

ixoy

Not sure what the paste was - whatever came with the heatsink/fan I guess as I don't see any tube lying around. I see the paste is on sale on Komplett although I assume fans/heatsinks come with their own?

I still can't see anything there to clean off the old paste and I doubt I should be using a damp cloth..

stevenmu

You might consider a BIOS update to sort out the differences in reported temps and fan speeds, altough that won't solve your immediate problem. 3750RPM Doesn't sound overly high considering the temps you're getting. More expensive fans/heatsinks quote slower rates because they're more efficient so don't need the fan going as quick, this makes them quieter too.

I'm a bit surprised by you mentioning dust buildup on the heatsink, this doesn't usually happen very much anymore (except maybe around the edges where the airflow isn't as strong). The fact that your heatsink is so hot is making me think that it's not able to shed heat fast enough, possibly due to this dust. If you're taking the heatsink off anyway to reapply paste (which is a good idea), make sure you get rid of all this.

edit: In the meantime you could also try under-clocking if your motherboard allows it, this might let you keep cool enough for internet/word etc

ixoy

Right it died again on me there. I didn't notice MM5 reporting any really abnormal tempratures before death but the heatsink nearly burnt my finger when I touched it.

The dust between the sink and fan was such that I couldn't see the heatsink atall. I've cleared some of it off - not sure what good it wll do me but at least I can see the heatsink now.

I let it cool then and re-booted. On bootup, the BIOS started off saying the CPU was 30C and quickly went up to 46C, at which point I booted to windows. Currently, the CPU diode is 59C which is actually lower than it has been the last few times by 15C. That could be either because I let it cool down more or because of the dust cleaning - I'm not sure. It'll be interestinng to see how it is in a while.

stevenmu wrote:

In the meantime you could also try under-clocking if your motherboard allows it, this might let you keep cool enough for internet/word etc

How embarassing - I'm not sure if I'm over-clocked or not. The BIOS says the CPU mutiplier is at 10x and, on bootup, the speed is 2GHZ - is that typical for an Athlon 2500XP+? Or is it over-clocked? And what does a 10x CPU multiplier mean?

ixoy

Update: Performing the same tasks as yesterday, same applications. At this point yesterday MBM5 gave a diode temp. of 95C which is rather bloody hot. Post-dust cleaning of the CPU fan and, doing the same things, I'm getting a temp of 63C - a 33% drop. Is this a more reasonable temp?

Dempsey

Ya thats better, but could be lower, tie back all loose cable etc to improve air flow.

What are all the temps now?

ixoy

63/64C still. The most stress it's under is playing a 350MB avi to the TV plus the usual browser/messenger software. Might be worth trying Prime95? There's a few cables that could be tied back too.

Dempsey

Ya use prime95 to stress test. Can you notice if the PC is running more stable now?

ixoy

Well there's no temp. fluctuation now that I was seeing. When I ran Media Player previously there was a steady rise in temp. over time so I'd have to shut it down after 30 mins. Now I've been running for over 2hrs and the temp. has stayed steady so I guess it means heat is dissipating more. Prime95 will punish it more, so I'll set that running tomorrow when I'm around.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Dempsey

I wouldnt consider any media player a stress test but your pc is performing better as you say, Its looking better anyway. Give prime95 a go. You'll know if ya have 100% stability.

sutty

Sounds like something has gone wrong with the heatsink/fan Try removing the heatsink and reapplying it. It may just be lose (if you can move the heatsink with little effert while it is mounted then it is to lose)

Dempsey

You didnt read the other posts, sutty?

stevenmu

ixoy wrote:

The dust between the sink and fan was such that I couldn't see the heatsink atall. I've cleared some of it off - not sure what good it wll do me but at least I can see the heatsink now.

:eek:
If you can't see the heatsink then either can the airflow that's supposed to be cooling it, the dust will act as an insulater trapping heat in the heatsink. If the heatsink can't shed it's heat then it can't cool the processor

ixoy wrote:

How embarassing - I'm not sure if I'm over-clocked or not. The BIOS says the CPU mutiplier is at 10x and, on bootup, the speed is 2GHZ - is that typical for an Athlon 2500XP+? Or is it over-clocked? And what does a 10x CPU multiplier mean?

Basically the motherboard and CPU both run at different speeds, in your case your motherbord runs at 200Mhz, altough it's 'dual-pumped' giving it an effective speed of 400Mhz, the 200Mhz is the one that counts here. The speed of the CPU is determined by the CPU multiplyer in your case it's 10 X 200 = 2Ghz. If you raised the multiplyer to 11X you would have 11 X 200 = 2.2Ghz, or you may be able to drop it down to 8X or 9X giving you 1.6Ghz or 1.8Ghz. Sometimes the multiplier is locked, meaning you have to leave it at 10X so the under/over-clock you'll need to change the motherboard speed of 200Mhz, which is probably represented in your BIOS as an FSB speed of 400Mhz. I think that doing this can cause instability as well though, and seeing as you're already unstable it could be hard to tell the difference between existing problems an ones caused by under-clocking.

Still the max temp for your CPU is around 85C (see here ) so once you're keeping it under 75 or so it should be ok

Ciaran500

You should invest in a can of compressed air and give your heatsinks and fans a good blast of air. I was amazed how much dust I got out of my pc using it.

stevenmu

Just be carefull to hold the fans in place when doing that, the compressed air can spin them too fast damaging the bearings.

sutty

Dempsey wrote:

You didnt read the other posts, sutty?

Yes I did, and 65C is way to high to run a CPU at. Even an athlon. Running a idle CPU at those temps will cause damage to the semi conducting components of the CPU.

At stock cooling you should be looking at temps of 40-48C any higher at idle temps and something has gone VERY wrong.

I've seen some people apply a thermal compound to the heat pads on the heatsink. The both of them don’t work very well together. So you might have to clean off the heat pad and thermal paste. Then reapply about a rice sized amount of thermal paste to the CPU core.

There are also BIOS settings that can effect fan speeds. Normaly under the PC health menu. I know newer athlon motherboards have a Fan speed setting there. By default they are set to auto. But if something was changed to low then it may account for the heat of the CPU.

sutty

Oh and a Athlon 2500+ should be running at a FBS of 166MHz (DDR333) and a Multaplyer of 11x and its default speed is 1.8Gz rounded off to the nearest 100MHz (It should be something like 1.826Gz or there abouts) But your core voltage is what you want to look at. It should be 1.65volts anything more and it will cause the temps to go up

Dempsey

What i meant was, that he was already told twice to reseat the heatsink and he did.

Does a 2500+ come in different cores?

Tenshot

Ixoy, it definitely sounds like your thermal paste hasn't been applied properly.

My parents bought a stock Pentium 4 PC over Christmas from a local hardware shop, and it was crashing regularly like yours. I installed MBProbe to monitor CPU temperature, and it would climb quite quickly to between 75-80'C. Once it went over 80', it would invariably crash.

I removed the heatsink (with some difficulty) and could see from the pattern in the paste that about 40% of it was burnt away, or had never been present in the first place.

I applied a €2 tube of new paste, using a bit of thin card to spread it evenly over the underside of the heatsink, then reseated it. Now the CPU temperature idles at around 28'C! Quite a difference, and no more crashes.

(Dempsey suggested you had already reseated the heatsink, but I didn't see any messages saying that, only that you had cleaned out dust - which is also worthwhile, of course, but 60'C is still too hot.)

Dempsey

Dempsey wrote:

What was the paste? I recommend Artic Silver 5, best on the market and their website will instuct you exactly how to apply it to your processor. It gives the best conduction. If he applied too much it can be as bad as not applying any.

You might need to just remove the heatsink clean it and the cpu reapply thermal paste and reseat the heatsink and make sure its on tight.

*cough*

I didnt point out the important of the thermal paste. Applied wrongly, the heatsink wont conduct the heat from the CPU and then you have problems.

I tried taking my heatsink off once and I ripped the CPU out of the socket the pasted had glued the CPU to the heatsink. Luckily I didnt bend any of the pins.

What heatsink are you using and what make/model fan is on the CPU?

Gerry

I'd say buy a new heatsink/fan from komplett, with an 80mm fan. Even the basic coolermaster with 80mm fan has a copper insert into the heatsink. On a new machine I've built, it keeps the cpus at 40c under load.

Gerry

As sutty says though, the barton 2500+ should be at 166fsb, not 200. That may be your problem If you had good cooling though, the mild overclock that you are running wouldn't be a problem.