nVidia and Hardy and everything

[Karl Larsen]

B.J. McClure wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-04-20 at 14:55 +0200, Nils Kassube wrote:
>   
>> Karl Larsen wrote:
>>     
>>>     I now have the covers off the box and it is still cool here. Now I
>>> can't make the system crash. It worked just great with Hardy. I have
>>> just re-loaded the good nVidia driver for 7.10. I am sure now it will
>>> be stable and look a lot better than the "nv" I am now using.
>>>       
>> And that's a problem you probably can't overcome with your new mainboard 
>> without Nvidia chips. Your open box reminds me of a similar problem I had 
>> long ago, when I installed extra RAM and HD in a machine. It became too 
>> hot as well. I solved it by reducing the processor clock about 10% - then 
>> I could close the box again without crashes. I don't know if you can 
>> change the clock on your mainboard, but if it is possible you could give 
>> it a try.
>>
>>
>> Nils
>>     
>
> How about a logical troubleshooting procedure here guys.  Start with the
> hardware monitor section of the bios.  Look at voltages first.  Are they
> within 10% of nominal?
    The voltages are 5.09 and 12.06 volts plus or minus 1 percent. I 
have a good meter and with the case off I can measure at the CD-Rom plug.
>   If so, look at ambient (mobo) and CPU temps.
> With case open ambient should be only a couple degrees above room temp.
>   
    The cpu heatsink temp is 25.0 C = 74 F which is about 5-8 degrees 
warmer than ambient now. I don't know how to measure the mobo 
temperature but hope it is not hot.

> CPU 10 to 15 degrees above mobo and well below 70 deg C.  If that all
> looks o.k. with case open, close it up, run anything CPU intensive and
> make same checks after half an hour or so.  If everything is still cool,
> boot into memtest, cover the box to increase temps to near max and let
> it run over night.
>
> If CPU temp is excessive on closed box test, shutdown, remove heatsink
> and fan.  Clean heatsink fins with dry compressed air or nitrogen.  No
> sparks please.  Clean any thermal tape or heatsink compound from
> heatsink and CPU with acetone.  Do not breath fumes.  Reassemble with a
> silver based thermal compound such as Arctic Silver.  Use a very thin
> layer...just enough to cover the die portion of the CPU chip.  If it
> squeezes out when you secure the heatsink you used too much.  Make sure
> the heatsink is mounted with correct orientation!  Some can be installed
> in such a way that good contact is not made with CPU die.
>
> Verify that all fans are turning the correct direction.  I have seen
> them plugged into motherboards incorrectly (I know, very hard to do) and
> on one occasion a fan mis-wired so that it ran backwards.
>
> Other readers of this "blog" may be interested in your findings.
>
> B.J.
>
> Ubuntu 7.10, Linux 2.6.22-14-generic unknown 09:27:51 up 2 days, 2:27, 1
> user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
>
>
>   
    I look at the fans and they are dirty but not overly so. I know what 
may be the problem. I have the CPU fan and a BIG fan on the back and the 
power supply fan running the right direction.

    Alas, there is a fan in the front of the case that has a plug that 
should plug into 12 volts on the mother board. But my MB does not have a 
spare 12 volt plug to plug it in. So I left it not running. This since I 
have a PHD in EE, will change. I will cut the plug off the fan and 
solder the wires onto a spare CD-Rom power plug :-)

    Not pretty but functional.

Karl



-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
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