duron problems

[benjfitz]

I recently got a new duron 700 and an abit kt7 and an fop 38. The processor does not want to run at its original speed. I have to bump up the voltage (twice now so it is running at 1.65 volts). I was thinking that the processor is running too hot for the thermal paste I am using (namely it is drying up) which is generic zinc oxide stuff from radio shack. Some problems were:
1) When I was first getting everything running again the first boot up screen said that it should be a duron 700 but that the processor was not running at its intended speed, so I changed this in the bios and it worked fine, but it seemed odd.
2) I tried the pencil trick on the L1 bridges but it did not work too well so I erased all of the marks (the best I could get it to recognize was 7.5).

 

[longhorn]

The Radio Shack paste should be fine. Inexpensive white thermal
paste is usually Zinc Oxide in a silicon paste. The Zinc Oxide
conducts the heat, the silicon provides a base. Silicon in
a very thin layer should show little, if any, drying out, particulary
under a heatsink. I have used silicon-based pastes in applications
that approach 100C, and never seen a loss of thermal
conductivity. This is over a period of a month or 2,
maybe someone is more knowledgable about silicon evaporating
over a longer time period.

Artic Silver claims to be 80-84% micronized silver, but there
needs to be some sort of base. I have no idea what the base
of Artic Silver is, perhaps some other readers do. Silver is
very electrically conductive, so this base must do something
special about this, as Artic Silver claims almost zero electrical
conductivity.

My advice would be to get the CPU running at the standard
speed prior to connecting L1 bridges and overclocking. That
way, you know that it works before you start changing things.
It also gives you the opportunity to legitimately return
a bad part. Once you have it all running reliably at the
default speed, you can jump up to a better fan, a better thermal
paste, etc., and try for that last few Mhz.

My guess is that the bridges are not connected
reliably, and giving you odd results. If some bridges are
connected, and others are not, or if you have some bridges
shorted to adjacent bridges, you may very odd results.


Good luck. I have my Duron 600 running reliably at 950Mhz.
It's quite a kick to get it all working, although I was
really hoping for that Ghz mark.

 

[Maximus96]

when i first put my duron 700 on a kt7 raid, it booted as a 500!! after penciled i booted fine on 700@ 1.5v, then 800@1.6v...finally 1000@1.775v, and try using the loctite kit, at lease for better peace of mind knowning its made to conduct current...but then the pencil worked just fine tho'...

 

[benjfitz]

It is just that every time I take off the heat sink the thermal paste looks pretty dry.

 

[whalen]

You erased the pencil marks?? Heh, I've never heard of that before!!

 

[longhorn]

Looks dry? Interesting. What kind of temps is your
motherboard sensor shown? The layer of paste should
be paper thin. If it looks very different than what you
just put on, maybe you got a bad tube. Still, I have heard
of people running with no paste, and even no heatsink, and
still get the sucker to boot. If your temps are reasonable,
say 45C or less, than I doubt that your problem is heat,
at least at the default speed.

 

[benjfitz]

Yeah, that's what the guy at athlonoc.com told me he did (just dip it in water first to get rid of any static charge). Is there a better way?

 

[wvjohn]

i've got the same rig with a duron 700 and a tbird 650 that i'm playing with. after i lock it up trying to oc, it comes back as a 500 mhz cpu about half the time - then i just change it to whatever and no more probs. my duron @ 950 idles at 27 and goes to about 36 under load the tbird is a little warmer @800 - the abit board goes back to a "safe" default the first time you put a cpu in and whenever you come back from a hard lock - once i change it in the cmos is stays changed until the next time i experiement. btw using arctic silver and haven't noticed any degradation