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| Thread ID: 53769 | 2005-01-26 10:11:00 | Annoying reboots - temperature related? | craig.b (6571) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 318360 | 2005-01-26 10:11:00 | Don't know if ayone remembers but a while ago I posted here asking about games spontaneously rebooting my machine, and that I thought the problem was temperature related as the probelm occured more often on warm days, and never seemed to occur on cool evenings... Anyway, I finally bought home a temperature logger I use at work, and attached it to various components in my machine, one at a time, and caused the fault to occur by playing a game and noting the temps. My Box Specs: Asus A7N8X-E deluxe mobo, Thermaltake 420W APFC PSU Athlon XP 3200+ Barton Core - Stock Cooler 2x 512Mb Twinmos Ram sticks, run in dual channel mode at 200Mhz Nvidia GeforceFX 5600 128Mb - Stock Cooler 2x 120Gb Seagate Hdd's LG DVD Writer Creative Live! 5.1 All contained in a Lian Li aluminium box, with 4 temp controlled fans + the 2 in the PSU. When the PC crashes it is only ever in a game, and I have run strenuous RAM tests with memtest86 (12 hours - no faults found - warm day), and benchmarked with 3dmark03, on both warm and cool days, and it never crashed. However, it also crashes playing huckery old games, like worms and warcraft, as well as new ones, like need for speed, and tiger woods. Running the temp checks, I found that the CPU temp remains pretty stable (~61-63 C), and doesn't reach any particular temp when the reset hits, same with the RAM (~35). Case ambient remains about ~26 - 28 depending on length of time on and ambient air temp. (these 2 temps are from my motherboard probe program - the following ones are measured with a thermocouple placed on the surface of the heatsink, so sufer from thermal lag, and will be considerably lower than the temps of the chip core in question) Then I got to the northbridge, which on my board is just a passive cooler, and found that the temp remains pretty stable under normal OS loads, (~45 - 46 C) but when playing a game, it climbs slowly but steadily to ~49.2. At that point my box resets. Always at that point, no matter the game, or the point in the game that I have reached - be it a static menu, or a fast paced race screen. What I cannot find is any info on maximum and recommended temps for northbridges, and I also cannot find much info on the thermal characteristics, either of my stock cooler, or any aftermarket coolers for chipsets... Also I am wondering if anyone out there might be able to do a similar test on thier northbridge and let me know what sort of temps they are running at? If anyone could help with either the info or the temps, that would be great, Cheers, Craig. |
craig.b (6571) | ||
| 318361 | 2005-01-26 10:35:00 | does it crash if you add a small fan over the northbridge heatsink? (just trying to eliminate it as it could be something else like south bridge or the power tranistors) i'm a little rusty here (and its late) but check the temp of the south bridge. if your useing the onboard audio it can overwork the southbridge (i may be wrong). |
tweak'e (69) | ||
| 318362 | 2005-01-26 10:39:00 | I am going to take my box to work in the next day or so and epoxy an old fan onto the northbridge, and I will also try taking southbridge temps, although I am not using on board sound (I have the live! card). As for the power transistors, I will attempt to take temps of them too... Cheers, Craig. |
craig.b (6571) | ||
| 318363 | 2005-01-26 10:48:00 | I am going to take my box to work in the next day or so and epoxy an old fan onto the northbridgeEpoxy = bad idea. For a start it's extremely hard to remove, and it also doesn't conduct heat away from the chip which defeats the purpose of putting a fan there. Unless you're fixing it to a heatsink already on the chip. Chances are if the bridge didn't ship with a fan then it's unlikely to need one. |
ninja (1671) | ||
| 318364 | 2005-01-26 11:55:00 | Set the limit in the BIOS for temperature limit to about 80C. Maybe get a new PSU, Thermaltake's aren't very good and it probably can't handle the load, hence causing the reboots. |
E|im (87) | ||
| 318365 | 2005-01-26 19:48:00 | ninja - Sorry, what I meant was to epoxy a fan onto the northbridge heatsink, and I use a rubber epoxy which peels away quite easily, but hols firm under vibration. Elim - The temp limits in the bios apply only to motherboard and CPU temps, neither of which are reaching any peak when the reboot occurs. As far as I am aware there is no method to internally read chipset temps. Also if you are going to tell someone a product is crap, maybe back it up with a few reputable reviews saying so, as I can only find good reviews on that PSU... |
craig.b (6571) | ||
| 318366 | 2005-01-26 22:24:00 | I don't know which power supplys are good or bad, so i won't make comment there, but i do remember reading an article on tomshardware.com about the new atx2.01 standard of PSU's, now just in the introduction of that article, they commented on the PSU often being overlooked in the equation of random reboots, and overheating of other components being blamed, and often the case could be a voltage drop occuring, so if you do have access to another PSU, it may be a bit of hassle, but try swapping them out and seeing if it does make a difference, you may be on to something with the north bridge, but if you can eliminate the PSU as well, you'll be getting even closer to a diagnosis, | mofbr256 (6989) | ||
| 318367 | 2005-01-26 23:56:00 | Ok I am a man on a mission now. I have made myself up another 5 thermocouples and obtained the meters for them. I also have an oscilloscope and a kW meter. I am going to obtain: Ambient Temp Southbridge Temp Northbridge Temp CPU Temp PSU Temp GPU Temp Voltage and Ripple on the PSU +5 and +12 rails. kW and Irms usage of the PSU (mains side) under different conditions and see if I can track down a common cause for the problem. Luckily we are having a run of hot weather at the moment, so I am able to test under elevated ambient temp conditions. |
craig.b (6571) | ||
| 318368 | 2005-01-27 00:44:00 | It sounds like you definately have the means to diagnose the problem, in lightof that, can we start a sweepstakes? i'll take a punt and put $10 on the powersupply.... |
mofbr256 (6989) | ||
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