X2 3600+ stock cooler performance

[General Schvantzkoph]

I just put together an X2 3600+ system (65nm) using the stock AMD cooler.
The CPU temperatures are running 28 degrees higher than my older X2 4400+
(90nm) system which has a Thermaltake cooler. Specifically the idle temps
at the low clock rate are 55C for the 3600+ and 28C for the 4400+ (they
are in a cold room, 60F). The cooler seems to be seated pretty well so
I'm wondering if this is normal for a stock AMD cooler. Is the stock
cooler this bad? Could anyone tell me what temperatures they are seeing
with stock AMD coolers? Does anyone have any recommendations for socket
AM2 coolers.

Thanks,

 

[Wes Newell]

I just put together an X2 3600+ system (65nm) using the stock AMD cooler.
The CPU temperatures are running 28 degrees higher than my older X2 4400+
(90nm) system which has a Thermaltake cooler. Specifically the idle temps
at the low clock rate are 55C for the 3600+ and 28C for the 4400+ (they
are in a cold room, 60F). The cooler seems to be seated pretty well so
I'm wondering if this is normal for a stock AMD cooler. Is the stock
cooler this bad? Could anyone tell me what temperatures they are seeing
with stock AMD coolers? Does anyone have any recommendations for socket
AM2 coolers.

No, that's not normal for the stock coolers. The K8 coolers are more than
adequate, unlike the ones that came with the K7 cpu's. Touch the actual HS
surface. At 55C it should be pretty hot. If it's cool or cold, then either
your temps are being reported wrong or the cooler isn't making good
contact to the cpu. At low idle rate of 1000MHz with my X2 3800+ my cpu
temp is the same as my case temp. With yours in a 60F room, your case
temps should be in the 20C's and cpu temps under no load with Cool n Quiet
active should be about the same or at most in the lower 30C range.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

No, that's not normal for the stock coolers. The K8 coolers are more
than adequate, unlike the ones that came with the K7 cpu's. Touch the
actual HS surface. At 55C it should be pretty hot. If it's cool or cold,
then either your temps are being reported wrong or the cooler isn't
making good contact to the cpu. At low idle rate of 1000MHz with my X2
3800+ my cpu temp is the same as my case temp. With yours in a 60F room,
your case temps should be in the 20C's and cpu temps under no load with
Cool n Quiet active should be about the same or at most in the lower 30C
range.

The heatsink is cold. I just reseated it, that didn't help, the BIOS is
reporting 58C. I wonder if the BIOS is reporting the correct temperature.
When I first brought this system up I ran sys_basher on it overnight at a
slightly overclocked speed. Sys_basher runs both cores flat out,
alternating between memory diags and floating point dot products. Given
the temperatures that I'm seeing when the CPU is just sitting in the BIOS
I would have expected the system to crash running sys_basher but it
didn't, it ran for 8 hours without an error.

This is the new 65nm version of the X2, maybe the current BIOS doesn't
have the right parameters for the 65nm CPU. I'm using an Abit KN9
motherboard with the latest BIOS.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

The heatsink is cold. I just reseated it, that didn't help, the BIOS is
reporting 58C. I wonder if the BIOS is reporting the correct
temperature. When I first brought this system up I ran sys_basher on it
overnight at a slightly overclocked speed. Sys_basher runs both cores
flat out, alternating between memory diags and floating point dot
products. Given the temperatures that I'm seeing when the CPU is just
sitting in the BIOS I would have expected the system to crash running
sys_basher but it didn't, it ran for 8 hours without an error.

This is the new 65nm version of the X2, maybe the current BIOS doesn't
have the right parameters for the 65nm CPU. I'm using an Abit KN9
motherboard with the latest BIOS.

I just checked on the Abit forums, it's a BIOS problem. The Abit BIOS
doesn't handle Brisbane's correctly.