Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:22:31 -0700 From: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> To: Glenn Johnson <gjohnson@nola.srrc.usda.gov> Cc: hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: overheating AMD K6-2 400 Message-ID: <200008251622.e7PGMVU18187@ptavv.es.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:46:39 CDT." <20000825104639.A51927@node1.cluster.srrc.usda.gov>
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> From: Glenn Johnson <gjohnson@nola.srrc.usda.gov> > Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:46:39 -0500 > Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG > > About a year ago I purchased an AMD K6-2 400 MHz processor for my > FreeBSD system at home. It had been working fine until recently. The > last two months I have been seeing some rather strange problems like > corrupted files from cvsup, bad dependencies from a buildworld even with > a fresh object tree, and signals 4 and 10 during compilation. The last > week I have had two spontaneous reboots which caused severe file system > damage. > > I knew it was hardware trouble and I finally pinned it down to the > CPU. The problems definitely start showing up after the CPU has warmed > up a bit. It is obviously a thermal problem or at least temperature is > a factor. I checked to make sure that the CPU fan was working and it > is. I remembered people on the FreeBSD lists saying that they had to > underclock there AMD K6-2s to get them stable so I clocked this one down > to 350. The problems took a little longer to surface but still do. I > should mention that the motherboard is a FIC VA503+ and the system had > never been overclocked. I pulled the CPU out and put my old Cyrix 133 > 6x86-MX chip in. This is working fine but is slow of course. > > My questions are: Does it sound like the AMD chip is shot or can I try > to enhance the cooling somehow and still use it? Or would I be better > off getting another CPU? If I get another CPU should I get another AMD > or should I go with one of the Cyrix MII models? I would want to put in > a CPU that was at least 400 MHz. No, it simply needs better cooling. My K6-III/450 was acting in a manner almost identical to yours. If you have a mobo that supports environmental monitoring, install healthd from the ports. You can use "healthd -d" to provide a running report on temperature. Mine would exceed 50 degrees C during a buildworld before it died and the temperature went up very quickly at some points. I have no doubt that gcc 2.95 hits the CPU much harder than 2.8 did. Also, the mobo monitors the temperature under the CPU while AMD specs a maximum temperature of 60 C on top of the chip. I suspect that the top get hotter than the bottom. I fixed the problem by spending $2 at Radio Shack for a little heat sink grease. Just unclipped the heat sink and spread a THIN layer of grease (just enough to have a layer of white) over the heat sink. Re-installed the heat sink and it ran like a champ. Buildworld ran without interruption or error for the first time since I upgraded to 4.0-Stable, and did so in a hot (29 C) room. Good luck! R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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