mainboard cooling

[alocormin]

I've brought the old AMD out of the closet - the one that crapped out on me and made me buy my fourth-rate Dell 2350 - deciding that I could try just a tad bit more troubleshooting. this machine is a bit more upgradable, if I can get it working....

The problem was, in the past and probably to this day, that my computer would freeze at periodic and seemingly random moments. Totally. No input would work, whatsoever. Sound stopped, video stopped. No error messages. This went on for about a year, until I got sick of it and bought a machine that had decent technical support...my good ol' Dell...
I used sisoftware sandra to diagnose the possible problem, just now, and I'm currently on my older, AMD based comp. One of the things that stood out at me, and has been a possibility in my mind for quite a while, is mainboard temperature. Apparently it runs too hot. My brother said the temperatures it was running at weren't bad, but this software says otherwise.
some other problems, that baffled me/stood out at me:
1. SMBIOS/DMI information may be inaccurate.
2. System monitor device implementation is known to vary.

"System monitoring devices can be used in different ways on different mainboards (e.g. sensor 1 measures CPU temperature instead of board temperature or Vin1 measures +5V instead of +12V) rather than using the manufacturer’s implementation guidelines that we’re using. The software will show incorrect data in this case as it cannot know the specific implementation details.
Fix: Let us know so we can attempt to support your board. As always, assume the BIOS is right as it is tuned specifically for your board rather than being generic like Sandra which supports thousands of different boards.

SiSoftware Sandra Help File"

3. Video BIOS is too old. I'll fix this soon, and get back on the results. Though I probably had an up-to-date version of the BIOS last time I was using this.


Umm...that's about all...I thought I saw more at first, though, maybe not.

Thanks in advance, if you give any advice.



EDIT: forgot to mention one thing. I bought something like a 1.44 GHZ T-Bird processor, and the default bios settings set it at 1050.
Any idea WHY??

 

[Noodlygod]

If it still locks up randomly I'd make sure the heatsink is on securely and apply some thermal paste if you haven't already. How hot is Sandra saying your motherboard is? Your 1.4 is reading as a 1050 because the FSB setting is wrong. If you got the 266mhz FSB T-Bird make sure the FSB is set at 133, (my guess is that it's currently set at 100) How did it finally die? Or did it ever die fully? If none of the hardware components ever fully crapped out (you couldn't even turn it on anymore) I'd try a re-install of Windows. Anywhoo good luck -Noodly

 

[alocormin]

It said it was running over 50 degrees celsius.
And no, my comp never pooped out. I'm on it right now, actually, it's just that whenever I play a game for a few minutes it locks.

 

[Noodlygod]

50 degrees isn't that bad. It's not cool, but it's not terrible. What's the ambient temperature outside of the case? (how hot is it in your room) And if it's just when you've been playing a game for a few minutes I'd look to your video card or cpu. I'd play some games with it clocked at 1050 and see if it happens, then return the clock to 1.4 and check again. What motherboard do you have?

 

[alocormin]

VIA chipset, KT7A.

I've tried changing around the cpu speed from the bios menu, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

Also, the time it takes for the comp to freez while playing varies, anywhere from 2 hours to 10 minutes. In half-life it tends to crash sooner. Warcraft III could work for about an hour at most. Even such old, old games as in the Fallout series will crash my comp.

I'm fairly certain that it'd only crashed once or twice in NWN, which doesn't really make sense. I played that game a fair amount, too.

edit: The ambient temperature in my room is fine; I have a rather large fan running and I've never had any heating issues with my Dell that I run in the same room, under sometimes hotter conditions.