Sometimes death isn't death, or at least that's sometimes the case for CPUs. I was playing Battlefield 2 (BF2) with a friend a couple of days ago, well, for the five minutes at a time I could get the game to work anyway, when I discovered my CPU was overheating. As it so often does even today, BF2 had rebooted my computer, and I decided to check the "PC Health" section of my motherboard's BIOS setup when it restarted. What I found wasn't encouraging: my Athlon XP 3200 CPU was operating around 72° C.
I had moved the computer into our new house recently, however, so it occurred to me that perhaps one of the fan leads had come loose. I also figured it was probably past time to clean out the dust bunnies from the case as well. With these thoughts in mind I asked my friend to wait a couple of minutes. I opened the case, cleaned out the machine, and checked all the fan leads, closed up the case, hit the power switch, and...
DOOO-BEEE-DOOO-BEEE-DOOO (shutdown) My first reaction to that was pure eloquence: huh? Seriously, one just never expects the computer to issue five, lengthy beeps of alternating tones, then power itself down. How odd, I thought, as I flipped switches, plugged plugs, and generally approached the problem like a primate might approach a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. No matter what I did, one thing remained constant: the system was no longer booting. Heck, my system was no longer making it through its power-on self test (POST).
And, to make matters worse, I was down in the new house by myself, without any of the other computers and the vast bulk of my tools. I was so pissed off that the computer had to fail when I needed it most—the sales and use taxes for my business were due in just a couple of days, and I had all the spreadsheets on that machine's hard drive. Since the CPU had been so hot, I checked the CPU cooler. My heart dropped into my stomach when I saw it was loose. I figured I had found the problem for sure: the stupid thing had come loose in the move and the CPU had melted. Great. Just great.
Things got even better when I went to the store the next day and found out that nobody local carries the Athlon XP series of CPUs anymore. Oh, I could buy a Sempron CPU, whose performance would suck terribly, or a nice new Athlon 64 CPU, which would require me to buy a whole new motherboard, new RAM, a new video card, and pretty much build a new system. I could always order a new Athlon XP over the Internet, but I really needed a working computer that day.
I gritted my teeth and started checking the prices of the various components. I did have some money in the company account, having recently completed a ColdFusion web site for a local company, so I figured I could just build a new system. Yes, it would be horribly inconvenient. Yes, I would have to spend money I really didn't want to spend right then. Yes, I would have to buy a video card I wouldn't want in just a few months after ATI's crossfire stabilized and their new R520 were released. But I resigned myself to being screwed.
And then I had a thought: I should try the old heatsink and fan just to be careful. The system was currently sporting a monstrous, Fortis A90 CPU cooler, which was supposed to be about the most amazing air-based cooler since sliced bread. When it comes to cooling and power, I aim at the best. I dug through my box full of older stuff, though, and I came up with the original, crappy, stock CPU heatsink and fan. I greased it carefully with Arctic Aluminum, installed it, hit the power switch, and felt my jaw hit the floor when it powered up just fine.
The machine that was literally refusing to boot with the high-end, enormous, heavy, all copper heatsink and super-fan in place started up just fine with the crappy little lump of aluminum and copper sitting on its CPU. In fact, the starting temperature of the CPU was a mere 51° C, one of the lowest I've ever seen, and it hasn't gone above 65° C since—even on warm days under heavy use. That's still not as cool as I'd like it to be, but the system boots and works, and that's what I really need most.
I really don't know what to think. I don't know why it stopped working. I don't know why the "better" cooler seems to be useless compared to the cheapo thing that came with the CPU when I bought it. What I do know is that I was able to get my sales and use taxes filed on time, and I haven't had any over-heating issues (as far as I know, that is) since. I'm still planning to build a new machine, as this one is over two years old at this point, but now I can do it on my time table, not in a dire emergency.
Right now I'm eyeing ATI's current crossfire technology, and I'm thinking about waiting until their R520 series of cards is released. I'm really tempted by NVIDIA's latest offerings too, but I've too many driver problems with them in the recent past. I'm thinking that I'll buy a nice, Athlon 64 CPU, a good video card, and just build a simple system for gaming and other work that requires a "clean" configuration. Whatever the case, here's hoping I don't have these ridiculous problems with my next box.
07/17/2005