Athlon X2 "Brisbane" - destroyed?
Hello. I am (was?) the happy owner of a 65nm Athlon X2 4800+ (Brisbane core) on a KN9 Abit motherboard... A month ago my heatsink (Arctic Freezer 64 PRO PWM) fell onto the video card after one of the lugs from the retainer broke. The computer was on, I wasn't at home, my girlfriend phoned me telling me there was a strange noise from the computer, and now there's an alarm ringing... I immediately knew what had happened, and so she cut the power from the system quickly...
I feared the worst, but luckily the video card was not damaged and - after repairing the damaged AM2 retainer and fitting the old stock cooler - the CPU seemed well. I only tested a few minutes of SuperPi, it ran without errors and that was it. After a long search I finally found yesterday a Thermalright retainer (AM2RM rev.B), and was able to put back the Freezer... I also got a syringe of Arctic Silver 5, and so I wanted to check the temps... But running two instances of Prime95 (one for each core) gets the CPU temperature to 90 degrees C fairly quickly and the computer shuts down!
I have tried lots of things... Updated the BIOS from ver. 12 to 14 (temperature problems were among the fixes on the abit website)... Tried different programs to read the temperature... CoreTemp, SpeedFan, Sandra, AbitEQ...
I also put back the AMD stock cooler... the same. The computer is OK for light load, also some gaming... But two instances of Prime95 or SuperPi are getting the overheat protection to kick in after a few minutes only... And I could do that for days before the heatsink incident...
The CPU doesn't seem that hot when I touch it. The Freezer lets quite a bit of the heatspreader uncovered. And I know how 90 degrees C should feel. I wonder if the thermal diode was damaged when the heatsink fell off... Or maybe I crushed the processor when I attached the Freezer (is that even possible?)...
Some of you may say that incorrect temperature readings are a common problem with Brisbane cores. But they were just perfect in the beginning.
So, that's my story. I'm afraid it's a bit too long, maybe boring, and mildly incoherent in some places. But I've been trying to solve this all day, it's 2:50 AM where I live, and I can't shake the feeling that my CPU went south... Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
I feared the worst, but luckily the video card was not damaged and - after repairing the damaged AM2 retainer and fitting the old stock cooler - the CPU seemed well. I only tested a few minutes of SuperPi, it ran without errors and that was it. After a long search I finally found yesterday a Thermalright retainer (AM2RM rev.B), and was able to put back the Freezer... I also got a syringe of Arctic Silver 5, and so I wanted to check the temps... But running two instances of Prime95 (one for each core) gets the CPU temperature to 90 degrees C fairly quickly and the computer shuts down!
I have tried lots of things... Updated the BIOS from ver. 12 to 14 (temperature problems were among the fixes on the abit website)... Tried different programs to read the temperature... CoreTemp, SpeedFan, Sandra, AbitEQ...
I also put back the AMD stock cooler... the same. The computer is OK for light load, also some gaming... But two instances of Prime95 or SuperPi are getting the overheat protection to kick in after a few minutes only... And I could do that for days before the heatsink incident...
The CPU doesn't seem that hot when I touch it. The Freezer lets quite a bit of the heatspreader uncovered. And I know how 90 degrees C should feel. I wonder if the thermal diode was damaged when the heatsink fell off... Or maybe I crushed the processor when I attached the Freezer (is that even possible?)...
Some of you may say that incorrect temperature readings are a common problem with Brisbane cores. But they were just perfect in the beginning.
So, that's my story. I'm afraid it's a bit too long, maybe boring, and mildly incoherent in some places. But I've been trying to solve this all day, it's 2:50 AM where I live, and I can't shake the feeling that my CPU went south... Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
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P.S. If you haven't found out already, the Arctic Freezer 64 PRO is damn near impossible to mount correctly with the motherboard inside the case.
Well... Everything is OK now with my CPU... But I haven't got the slightest idea why it is all working now...
I disassembled my computer... Checked if everything about the motherboard and CPU is ok visually... Then tested again with the old (broken) retainer and the stock HSF (even using the old Arctic Silver that was smeared on them)... And the temps were OK...
EVRIKA I said to myself... The retainer from Thermalright must be the culprit. But to make sure of that I mounted it again... And there it was, working perfectly even with the "new" retainer... As I said I have no idea why it is working now... It seems perfectly symmetrical, so I don't know if I mounted it the same orientation as it was before... Anyway I'm not going to reverse it again just to check... I'm happy that it's all going as it should.
I then tested with the Freezer, but I got mixed results... The temps were as high as with the stock HSF (around 63 degrees C in full load), it was much louder at full speed and when I poked around with my fingers to "feel" the temp of the heatspreader the temp jumped to about 75 degrees (I haven't tilted the Freezer, just touched the IHS)...
So I'm using the stock cooler now, very happily Prime95-ing right now at 65 degrees (my room is hotter than it was yesterday). And I can say that the Freezer is one of the worst computer parts that I bought... Breaking the retainer and causing all these problems really offset any of the advantages it might have had in the beginning...