Right - determined to sort this out today.

Started the machine (for the first time today) in setup and found the
page which gives CPU temperature, etc. Said should be 72C. Over the short
period I watched it it climbed from 50C to 80C then shut down. The fan was
running normally.

Is there anything that could cause the CPU to overheat this quickly -
some form of abnormal load?

--
*I want it all and I want it delivered

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
Right - determined to sort this out today.

Started the machine (for the first time today) in setup and found the
page which gives CPU temperature, etc. Said should be 72C. Over the short
period I watched it it climbed from 50C to 80C then shut down. The fan was
running normally.

Is there anything that could cause the CPU to overheat this quickly -
some form of abnormal load?

The heat sink is not fitted correctly.. take it off and do it again.
Next time buy an Intel.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Right - determined to sort this out today.

Started the machine (for the first time today) in setup and found the
page which gives CPU temperature, etc. Said should be 72C. Over the short
period I watched it it climbed from 50C to 80C then shut down. The fan was
running normally.

Is there anything that could cause the CPU to overheat this quickly -
some form of abnormal load?

Bad heatsinking.
Bad CPU.

In article ,
AJH wrote:
On Fri, 09 May 2008 09:44:19 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

Started the machine (for the first time today) in setup and found the
page which gives CPU temperature, etc.

In the BIOS?

Think so. I'm not really a PC person. ;-)

Said should be 72C.

I think you must mean that this is the CPU shut down temperature,
which explains what was happening.

No - it said something like target temp. Can't look at it now as it's in
bits.

Over the short period I watched it it climbed from 50C to 80C then shut
down. The fan was running normally.

It points to a poor joint between the heat sink and CPU, your wiggling
it may have made it worse. After you clean both surfaces (propyl
alcohol maybe) use some heat sink paste to get a good connection.

It seems to have been making pretty good contact - although it's possible
I was over generous with the paste. I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Is there anything that could cause the CPU to overheat this quickly -
some form of abnormal load?

I forgot what CPU you have but IIRC a p4 2GHz dissipates 67W, so it
cooks in seconds.

Right. It's an Athlon 64 3000+

One other thing I found - not being well up on cable select, or even
reading the instructions on the HD - I'd set it to master but had plugged
in into the slave connector of the cable. So the BIOS reported no master
but slave only. I'd also set the two CD writers to master and slave on the
other IDE bus.

--
*Save a tree, eat a beaver*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after showing the
BIOS page at startup.

--
*I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't care.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after showing the
BIOS page at startup.

Sounds like no contact with heatsink at all.

(If you did that with the really early AMD hammer, you heard
a crack about 2 seconds after switching on, which was the CPU
case cracking in half;-)

Can you get the ZIF leaver up with the heatsink in place?
If so, do that and lift the heatsink off. It should come
off with the chip, as a thin layer of heatsink compound
correctly applied actually takes a bit of pulling apart,
like a rubber sucker.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after showing
the BIOS page at startup.

Sounds like no contact with heatsink at all.

(If you did that with the really early AMD hammer, you heard
a crack about 2 seconds after switching on, which was the CPU
case cracking in half;-)

Can you get the ZIF leaver up with the heatsink in place?
If so, do that and lift the heatsink off. It should come
off with the chip, as a thin layer of heatsink compound
correctly applied actually takes a bit of pulling apart,
like a rubber sucker.

It was indeed truly stuck. It looked to have been making very good contact
indeed. I'm wondering now if I got some of the paste in the CPU connector.
Is it possible to strip it down to clean it properly?

--
*Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:
In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after showing
the BIOS page at startup.

Sounds like no contact with heatsink at all.

(If you did that with the really early AMD hammer, you heard
a crack about 2 seconds after switching on, which was the CPU
case cracking in half;-)

Can you get the ZIF leaver up with the heatsink in place?
If so, do that and lift the heatsink off. It should come
off with the chip, as a thin layer of heatsink compound
correctly applied actually takes a bit of pulling apart,
like a rubber sucker.

It was indeed truly stuck. It looked to have been making very good contact
indeed. I'm wondering now if I got some of the paste in the CPU connector.
Is it possible to strip it down to clean it properly?

I really doubt it. I think you would have to be unlucky
for it to prevent the socket working, unless you got
loads in there. I imagine any attempt to dissassemble
one of those sockets is highly unlikely to work afterwards.

Check carefully for bent/broken pins on the chip.

I might try reseating anything else pluggable, incluing
leads (power connector particularly).

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In message , Andrew Gabriel
writes
In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after showing the
BIOS page at startup.

Sounds like no contact with heatsink at all.

Just a thought ...

is the heatsink on back to front ?


--
geoff

In article ,
geoff wrote:
In message , Andrew Gabriel
writes
In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after
showing the BIOS page at startup.

Sounds like no contact with heatsink at all.

Just a thought ...

is the heatsink on back to front ?

To the best of my knowledge it's not handed. Looks to be symmetrical.

--
*Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after showing the
BIOS page at startup.

--
*I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't care.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Have you got the fan the right way round? ie the cool air from the fan
should blowing onto the heatsink,also check the heatsink fins for dust
clogging them?

In article ,
George wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after showing
the BIOS page at startup.

Have you got the fan the right way round? ie the cool air from the fan
should blowing onto the heatsink,also check the heatsink fins for dust
clogging them?

Heh heh. It mysteriously turned itself round?

--
*I love cats...they taste just like chicken.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
George wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Whatever I've done has made it worse. It shuts down just after showing
the BIOS page at startup.

Have you got the fan the right way round? ie the cool air from the fan
should blowing onto the heatsink,also check the heatsink fins for dust
clogging them?

Heh heh. It mysteriously turned itself round?

--
*I love cats...they taste just like chicken.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Well it worked for me because the last time I cleaned this computer out (if
only dust was a comodity I'd have been rich) I put the fan the wrong way
round and was getting exactly the same symptoms you're faced with.
After much head scratching it suddenly dawned on me that the cool air from
cpu fan was blowing outwards,a quick change around and we were back to
normal.
Funny though I have two big fans in the case one on the front chassis metal
for blowing cool air around the other fan on the back of the chassis for
drawing out any warm/hot air.

On Fri, 09 May 2008 12:49:23 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
AJH wrote:
On Fri, 09 May 2008 09:44:19 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

Started the machine (for the first time today) in setup and found the
page which gives CPU temperature, etc.

In the BIOS?

Think so. I'm not really a PC person. ;-)

Said should be 72C.

I think you must mean that this is the CPU shut down temperature,
which explains what was happening.

No - it said something like target temp. Can't look at it now as it's in
bits.

Over the short period I watched it it climbed from 50C to 80C then shut
down. The fan was running normally.

It points to a poor joint between the heat sink and CPU, your wiggling
it may have made it worse. After you clean both surfaces (propyl
alcohol maybe) use some heat sink paste to get a good connection.

It seems to have been making pretty good contact - although it's possible
I was over generous with the paste. I've removed it all including CPU and
cleaned it all up. Will re-assemble after this coffee. ;-)

Normally with paste you only need a tiny amount. Apply some on the
heatsink and spread it out over the contact area. Now scrape off the
excess. A common mistake is to have too much.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xekr6eQL62U. I don't put any
compound on the CPU itself, only on the heatsink.


Is there anything that could cause the CPU to overheat this quickly -
some form of abnormal load?

I forgot what CPU you have but IIRC a p4 2GHz dissipates 67W, so it
cooks in seconds.

Right. It's an Athlon 64 3000+

These produce a lot less heat than a P4 IIRC.

One other thing I found - not being well up on cable select, or even
reading the instructions on the HD - I'd set it to master but had plugged
in into the slave connector of the cable. So the BIOS reported no master
but slave only. I'd also set the two CD writers to master and slave on the
other IDE bus.

If you have set the jumper to master then it is irrelevant which
connector you use.

--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Owing to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking most articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.
See http://improve-usenet.org

In article ,
Mark wrote:
One other thing I found - not being well up on cable select, or even
reading the instructions on the HD - I'd set it to master but had
plugged in into the slave connector of the cable. So the BIOS reported
no master but slave only. I'd also set the two CD writers to master and
slave on the other IDE bus.

If you have set the jumper to master then it is irrelevant which
connector you use.

The BIOS reported it as master not present, but slave only. I was hoping
correcting this might speed up the damn thing.;-) But it's totally fooked
at the moment anyway. I'll look at it again this evening.

--
*How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.