[Tyrsonswood]

I salvaged another MOBO yesterday....... Now I have a "new" system! Soltek KT600 with an Athlon XP 2200+ ........ Gotta work on cooling tho' runs hot at stock speeds....... IMO. It was running 60c lastnight when it finished doing the XP SP3 upgrade....... that's not really "under load" more like "just off idle" .... to me, thats a little warm

What works for these old Athlons as far as HSF setups? This board is capable of some OC so I figure I will try this, so I need a good cooler or MOD what I have...... I wasn't doing the computer thing back when this stuff was new, I had dropped out for quite a few years, anybody remember what worked on the old AMD processors? Some of that information is drying up on the web, I get processor specs, unlocking info, but not much about cooling and a bunch of dead links. So I'm asking here, some of you guys must have worked on these guys.

Money is a big problem, so a "ju$t buy thi$" is not really where I'm at....... Modifying what I can find surplus or on ebay if I have to is more my style. It has a copper core HSF now, maybe a bigger fan? Second fan?.

I know it's old school for you guys but it runs pretty fast for 1.8Ghz, it's quicker than my Celeron 2.4 just messin around in windows, should be plenty fast for recording in the basement.

Nice board !!! .... it's Purple and Yellow too! 'adds to the vibe....

[DJ BIG T]

i used a zalman on my xp 2800+ which worked great and its cheap to buy...

::: Zalman, leading the world of Quiet Computing Solutions :::

[Mac Daddy]

I am using a Scythe Katana2 on an old pin modded Northwood Celeron 2.6 (O/C 3.6G @ 1.65V core) and I runs temps around 40C under load with it.

This cooler is the most versatile I have used it supports 478, 775 and AMD sockets and its relatively cheap.

Scythe KATANA 2 3Heat Pipes CPU Cooler

[Tyrsonswood]

Thanks guys, so far though, no match. This soltek doesn't have 4 bolt mount availability. HSF has to mount via the old socket A/462 clip system. CPU is also at the very top of the board so I can't get much bigger than an 80mm fan without running into the power supply.

I'll keep looking.

For now I'm going to try a second fan, there's just barely enough room on the side. With this Soltek board the CPU is turned at a different angle so the bottom power supply fan no longer helps pull the hot air away from/out of the heatsink.... not as efficiantly anyways....... The fin orientation is turned 90 degrees compaired to the other two boards I've had this CPU on.

I re-seated the HSF last night and it was holding 53c at idle after about five hours... this is in a cold house too, seems high to me...... I haven't pushed this thing at all yet as far as using the system..... so far I've just got Xp on it.

More than overclocking I'm worried about running this a full tilt during the summer when room temps are high and I'm recording some tracks.

[Mac Daddy]

Hmmm that is an old socket the Katana cu supports it but shows discontinued unless you can find one locally ...

[Tyrsonswood]

Yeah.... locally would be ebay. There's nothing around here for stuff like that and I'm not driving 50 miles one way for a fan.....

A lot of these HSF cost more than I have in the whole system. That Katana Cu would fit the socket and probably the area in the case too but it's heavy..... not sure how long those plastic pins on the socket would last with that hanging on there..... Heat pipes on a socket A though. Who would have guessed.....

What I have now is a Thermaltake Volcano 6..... just barely capable for a 2200+ which is what I'm seeing with these temps. The second fan dropped it one degree..... Maybe I'll turn it around and see what happens. It's the best I've got right now that fits......

Thanks

[Mac Daddy]

Wish I could be of more help ... how is the cooler oriented in the case now bro?

[Matth]

Not sure about "turn round", as the Volcano 6 appears to be a piece of heatsink section with a 60mm fan bolted to it.

Actually, be certain it IS the right way round, the Socket A mount is asymmetric and some heatsinks have a step or an off-centre contact point.

Also, case circulation is critical, as that style of heatsink tends to recirculate badly, performance of the CPU heatsink improves massively if the case extraction is attended to, got me a good few degrees C when I was struggling with a barely adequate heatsink.

If there is a position for a rear case fan, use it, makes a hell of a difference to the CPU for these less advanced heatsinks.

The other thing would be to improvise a duct.

Another thing, using an 80mm fan on an 80-60mm funnel is one possibility, but while an 80 will shift more air with less noise, the loss of fan blade turbulence may actually lower the efficiency

[Tyrsonswood]

Thanks for the info, It's mounted correctly..... that's how I ended up with this CPU and a different board originally..... "it's dead!" noooo the heatsink was on backwards..... his loss and I got my first AMD........ Anyways. what I'm "turning around" is a secondary fan I added to the mix. The stock fan mounts on top blowing in and I have a second 60mm fan that is blowing through the fins of the heatsink (or drawing out when "turned around") The old board's CPU location had the power supply bottom fan pulling the air through the heatsink where as this board has the fins running the other direction. The idea of the extra fan is to get the hot air out of the heatsink more efficiently..... I had the stuff, didn't mutilate anything mounting it so it's worth a try.

I will need something better eventually, this unit is pretty lame...... I just want to get the temps down before I use the system much.

The case does have a back fan (80mm) plus the PSU fans. I will be adding front fans for hard drive cooling soon but I don't expect that to change CPU temps much. I may try to fit a larger back fan or a shroud but I think ultimately it's going to be a new HSF that does it......

[Tyrsonswood]

Just an update..... with the second fan blowing through the heatsink temps are at 52 degrees at idle....... Still haven't pushed it with anything.

Anybody remember what heat range these 2200+ Thoroughbred's run? I've read they can run hot but I've also seen some temps in the 40's on some of these old websites...... 50 at idle seems hot to me. but I could be wrong

[blibbax]

That's definitley a bit hot. Maybe you could bodge in a bigger cooler somehow? I'd have thought an 80 to 60mm adaptor would work providing you can mount one, as the adaptor would be sealed so no throughput would be lost.

[Mac Daddy]

Originally Posted by Tyrsonswood

Anyways. what I'm "turning around" is a secondary fan I added to the mix. The stock fan mounts on top blowing in and I have a second 60mm fan that is blowing through the fins of the heatsink (or drawing out when "turned around")

I wasn't familiar with the cooler I was thinking it had a side mounted fan as most do now. I am unclear on one thing you mentioned this about the stock fan ... "The stock fan mounts on top blowing in".

Is the fan mounted on the cooler pushing air towards the cooler? If so it should be reversed. On the other fan push or pull as long as the air is moving towards some sort of case exhaust fan.

[Tyrsonswood]

The stock cooler has the fan blowing in, yes! Majority of the old coolers did as far as I know.... my P4 coolers do anyways. The second fan I added blows through from the front to the back..... roughly in line with the back case fan. It's getting a lot of air.

I'm thinking because the copper plug is pressed into the aluminum fins that there may not be good thermal contact anymore between the two pieces..... that would cause this and would happen over time..... especially if it sat for some time. I'm figuring when new, it barely did the job.... now it can't handle it.

I'm going to cut a slot in and old intel P4 heatsink I have, so I can use the AMD socket 462 type clamp. More surface area, bigger fan, and all one piece. It should just fit and be way over spec for this processor. It's just sitting there so it can't hurt to try. Getting the thickness where the clamp goes is the critical part so the tension on the CPU remains about the same....... cutting it with a hacksaw is the "hard" part.... my arms are tired already. LOL

[Tyrsonswood]

I just won two new Aerocool extreme copper coolers off ebay for $12.99 with the shipping..... Shipping was 10 of that.... $2.99 for two HSF setups, new in the package. At the last minute I just had to throw down a bid.

$3.00

I'm sure they aren't Zalmans but they were cheap and the specs look okay. They spec up to the XP 3000+ so should work fine....... have an 80 mm fan (with idiot lights ) and universal mounting for most sockets. If the cheap fan dies.... I got a spare. Should be okay!

In the mean time the cutting of the P4 HSF is moving along and will probably work as well....... One way or the other this things gonna run cooler. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks guys,

EDIT..... I just read some reviews and this thing actually did very well..... GROOVY

[Mac Daddy]

Cool keep us posted

(On the fan never had one blowing towards the cooler before that's different )

[blibbax]

Nice. I like the cuting of the P4 cooler - very resourceful! This is the kind of computing I want to see!

[Matth]

The old style heatsinks were all a section of aluminium fin extrusion with a dinky 60mm fan blowing toward the core, discharging from both ends of the channels. Then came 80mm fanned units, with a downflow configuration through partially open fins (wedge shape, or a base section that does not reach the outer edge of the fins).

Aerocool Extreme Socket A and Socket 478 Review - Page 1 - Introduction - Not a great review

It does seem that the alignment is better suited though.

PS. One more thing, if used to the capped cores of todays CPUs, the open core Athlon XP is far less forgiving. Chipped cores or loss of the 4 stabilizing pads is a serious danger, and some say that shims are essentail, other suggest that the shim is more dangerous than doing without.

[Tyrsonswood]

I don't have a shim, but the pads and core are in good shape. Mounting is nice and flat..... every time I remove the heatsink the contact looks even by the way the remaining compound looks.

The cut P4 HSF mounted well, has good contact and works okay, dropped the temp about 2 degrees. The fan speed is much lower though. If I lap the mounting surface and speed up the fan it would get better. Stiil quite warm though. Not sure if the MOBO limits the voltage to the fan, slowing it down....... it doesn't seem to speed up when warmer like it's controlling the fan speed but it could be throttled back some. I'll see if it picks up some speed at 12 volts straight off the PSU. As it is the fan runs about 400 RPM slower than the same fan in my Celeron/AsRock setup...... over 1300 rpm slower than the P4 EE HSF in my Intel which is a similar fan... (I think the EE is tweaked for speed)

@ Matth The review you posted was one that I read... the big complaint about these is the crappy P4 mounting .... should be fine on a socket 462 because that's what it's originally designed for. The unit seems to do a good cooling job, better than the Thermaltake I have now with the 60mm fan. I'll see in a few days when they get here.

[Tyrsonswood]

Running the fan straight from 12v instead of off the board picked up 125 RPM and it's running 49c with the hacked P4 HSF.....

Still warm for doin nothing but reading it's own temp in windows......

[blibbax]

At least that's cool enough for you to risk sme stress testing. What are the load temps in Prime95 etc.?

[Matth]

Nearly forgot, my old Athlon Thunderbird rig (1200B, I had an Irongate based motherboard, at the peak of VIA bug scare).

Started with a pretty naff heatsink, and had to rake out a spare fan for the case to bring all the temps down (case & HSF).

Then one of the computer fair dealers recommended this one
Thermoengine V60-4210 Heatsink Review - FrostyTech.com
The Thermoengine V60-4210 - not sure if mine is "magic" or empty though.
[H] Enthusiast - ThermoEngine Review

As stock, this particular one is not super cool, but rates well for quietness - though if higher performance is needed, it handles higher speed fans well.

One nasty with them though, is they have a tendency to cut up the stabilizing pads.


If you really want to chill out, S2KCTL may be of assistance
S2kCtl Download
(Original site unavailable).
|MG| Athlon CPU SoftCooler XMas Edition 1.5 Build 101 - Has some info

Beware, activating disconnect mode places extreme demands on power regulation, as the CPU load smashes between super-halt and full - it was unstable for me!
It is not the fault of the program, it simply means the motherboard VRM is not up to the demand - it also stresses the memory bus, as the CPU cache invalidates at every disconnect cycle - noise in sound is another possible side effect of the load and bus cycling.

[Mac Daddy]

Temps @ 49C idle still a bit high to do much but getting there.

Good advice Matth I will continue reading along here

[Tyrsonswood]

Thanks for the info, I grabbed those downloads, but if noise in the sound is possible that's not going to work for me.... I'm hoping to record with this system. But I can see what they do.

Nice heatsink, I like the 4 sided fins but can see how it would cut up the pads. I should have two aerocool extremes showing up in a few days, I'm hoping one of those drops it quite a bit, the 80mm fan will help.

I have read these can run hot, AMD says operating temp range is 0-85c
That's some crazy heat!


I haven't done any stress testing yet, I haven't even turned it on yet today.

[CDsDontBurn]

if you can find one, try and find a vantec aeroflow HSF. they had one for the s478 and also for s462. at one point in time i had both.

The neat thing about this unit's fan is that it doesn't have a motor. along the outside edge of the fan there are tiny magnets that have polarized opposites, one to attract and one to repel. thus, the effect of this is that there is no center "dead spot" that all other fans have due to having the motor in the middle of the fan.

also, quick question. is your xp2200+ a palomino core or a thouroughbred core? i saw you already stated that it was a thouroughbred, but is that a for sure answer, or just a guess? The reason I ask is because depending on which core it is that yours is, would inform you if it normally runs at higher temps or not.

[Tyrsonswood]

I checked the numbers... it's a throughbred, an early one. From what I've read they were hotter than the palomino, right? Still this seems warm "but within spec" I mean it's not going balistic or anything.

Case and MOBO temps are fine, It's just a HSF deal. That Vantec looks sweet! I'll see if one shows up on "the bay"

Thanks

[CDsDontBurn]

it wouldn't matter if it were an early thouroughbred or a later one. the process is still different therefore more efficient and also cooler than the palominos. the thouroughbreds have more transistors on a smaller die and that is what allows for cooler temps.

also, one thing you might want to check is the CPU core voltage for that specific CPU (i forget even though i was big on OCing thouroughbreds and bartons back in the day prior to my p4 rig), and see what the current CPU core voltage is right now for your CPU. if your MoBo allows you to adjust the voltage and if the automatic voltage is set on the higher range of the default CPU core voltage, try and bring that CPU core voltage down to the lower end of the acceptable CPU core voltage range.

[Tyrsonswood]

It's this CPU... AMD Athlon XP 2200+ - AXDA2200DKV3C

They don't spec a range for the core volts... just 1.65V The board is adjustable but it's set to auto. It's running at 1.64 so its where it's meant to be. This board does have a ton of settings I haven't touched yet in bios, it's pretty much at "auto" for all the timings and voltages. In other words "stock" as far as I know.

The last board I had this CPU in was underclocked by default... it didn't support past a 1500+ but it ran well, just not at speed. The board the CPU came with was damaged physically before I got to do much with it but it ran and was free. LOL

[Tyrsonswood]

This is interesting....

In another thread Mac Daddy mentioned HWMonitor by cpuid so I downloaded that and ran it on this system. HWmonitor only reads the IT87 sensors. This soltek board also has National LM90 sensors that read the CPU core and socket temps. It's the LM90 that the soltek hardware monitor software uses. Speed fan sees both types of sensors and trys to report on all of them (some match up with other programs, some are bogus readings) and Everest uses a mix of the sensors.

Okay so the LM90s are reading the CPU temps I've been reporting (now @ 47c with the modded P4 HSF) from either speedfan, everest, or the soltek monitor. They all match temps but Soltek software labels the sensors correctly CPU Die, ABS II, and Remote. ABS II being under the CPU in the middle of the socket, which by the way is a few degrees higher than CPU Core at all times.

HWMonitor gives 3 readings that are around 32-38c from the IT87's (0, 1, 2 with no other id for where those sensors are.) and nothing from the LM90's. Speed fan and everest also report with these good temps as "motherboard" or "aux", or just Temp2 etc...... The third IT87 sensor is the one that gives bad readings,,,, like -58c in speed fan or it jumps around in HWMonitor.... not a valid sensor.... My Celeron does the same thing, one reading just doesn't make sence in speedfan....

There is an aux temp connector on the MOBO for remote temp checking, this is also LM90. I took an identical sensor probe to the one that reads the CPU socket on the Soltek, from a dead mobo and wired it to a plug. It reads properly...... right now it reads the northbridge heatsink at 34c which is probably correct, just idling. I can move that around the case and it reads differently, so I would figure that the LM90 CPU temps are correct as well...... even though high. The Temps in Bios are from this set of sensors also and thay are the same as I see in programs under windows.

The temps from the IT87 are also valid, I guess, maybe???? but are not CPU readings as far as I know.


I know guys always refer to one or the other monitor program as the best, but what about a board with two types of sensors What does one trust? Soltek was building an overclocking board with this one, I would imagine they used the LM90's on the CPU for a reason.

If I only had HWMonitor as a monitor program I would be off by about 20 degrees....... thinking I was seeing a CPU temp ..... Weird stuff, and possably hazardous to the CPU


No wonder I love old gear

EDIT to the above. ABS II is the diode in the CPU itself, CPU Die is the diode in the center of the socket... both are LM90. That remote is handled by the IT87 as are the other sensors. The LM90 can only spec two temps. I found some old links about this issue.

So my CPU is running at 50c @ idle for the last few hours

[Mac Daddy]

On HW monitor it's taken me a while to identify some of the sensors as well but they are usually quite accurate. On "aux" sometimes shows a sensor that is non existent on the motherboard and in a lot of cases irrelevant.

[Tyrsonswood]

HWMonitor just doesn't work for this board for some reason. I did find a few "older" programs, MBM5 for one, that takes quite a bit of setup but does a good job with these particular sensors, no problem with dual sensors either. And some older burn-in types, megabench and hotcpu ........ (haven't run Prime95 yet...... looked at it but no internet on this system yet so I didn't mess with it.)

I lapped that modded intel P4 heatsink and changed the fan for one from an old P4 EE HSF. (had to cut it up some to mount it, but it's solid.) This intel fan had a temp probe in the air stream above the fan..... I guess for case temp increase? I cut it off and the fan runs about 1000 rpm faster with no probe, about 4800, with the probe it's down to 4114 RPM. So I put the probe on wires and set it down inside the heatsink right above the CPU. Now the unit will control fan speed via CPU temps. I would imagine I can shift this around in the heatsink to adjust the tems that it changes speed too. It's partially wrapped with shrink tube so it's snug in there but I could move it if needed.

Right now the CPU idles at 53c, (based on an average of several programs and the BIOS) and the fan speed is about 4200. If below 50, like at startup, the fan is at 4114 RPM.

Under load, "megabench" from 7byte, the CPU will get up to almost 60c (57-60) and the fan speed will increase to 4668 RPM. Temps and fan speed are very reactive to the different tests this program runs.

I've run this in a loop for 5 times, about an hour, and it never did exceed 59c on MBM5..... now the soltek monitor, which I was quoting the temps in the original post @ 60c/idle is reading 56c under load, 53c idle so the modded intel HSF has really cooled the system down quite a bit if I go by this program. The funny thing is at idle both programs read the same, so does everest, but as the CPU heats up they all read a little different (within 4 degrees of eachother) with MBM5 being the highest reading.

From what I've seen on old forum posts across the net 53c-60c temps were common for the Tbred core 2200+ with much fancier HSF's so I think the system is going to be fine....... It's just that my 2.8 P4 HT runs about 20c cooler.

Go figure.....


Oh! ......Still haven't heard from the ebay guy about those fans I bought.