Hardware Just upgraded to Dual-Core (Now what?)

[dg10050]

So I just upgraded to an Althlon 64 X2 6400+ from my old Athlon 64 3200+. After several hours of figuring out how to put everything together including my massive GeForce 8800 GTS and my new 120mm CPU fan, Windows XP won't boot and Vista was deactivated. I called Microsoft and got the Vista issue worked out (With surprisingly little hassle), but I still don't have XP. I now pretty much have two cores which are each equal in speed to my old CPU.

Of course I also had to upgrade my motherboard since I needed an AM2 socket, and I had to buy new RAM since my old RAM was DDR and I needed DDR2. I was wondering what software/games actually benefit from a dual core processor. Also, what should I be doing with my new system? I know I should run Memtest 86+ to check the RAM. I also used Arctic Silver 5 which I know has a break-in period. But what should I be doing during this break-in period? Should I be running something like Prime95 or should I be turning my computer off when I'm not using it? If anyone has any ideas about getting XP to boot, that would be great. (Right now it just BSODs without even displaying the Windows loading screen) Another issue I have is that my motherboard only supports two PATA devices, while I have three. I have two hard drives (one with Vista, one with XP) and a DVD+RW DL burner. I'm probably going to end up buying a SATA DVD drive, but if anyone has a better/faster/cheaper alternative, that would be awesome.
BTW, CPU-Z: http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=288589

 

[robi]

I don't know about Vista, with Windows 95 through XP I've almost never seen a successful boot up when you replace the majority of the hardware. It's always a good idea to do a fresh reinstall.

If it works in Vista, that's good news...I've been quite used to doing it with Linux.

 

[delta123]

when upgrading a system you should always install everything from scratch. but you will find that most programs will benefit from the dual cores.

 

[FAST6191]

Hmm I would consider turning the old machine into a new one as you seem to be only lacking drives and a case.

Still MS hashes your hardware which if drastically changed will throw up errors (I guess it is designed to stop speaking spreading ghost images).

As for benefit: the ability to have a dedicated core means just about everything will benefit while the OS does what it has to do.

Games: a few of them have the ability, normally the more modern but

Video: I am not too clued up on commercial offerings but there are loads of freeware apps that work great: FAVC (dvd maker), multicorenc: can be used for just about everything (x264 is especially nice).

As for lack of pata space you can get adapters to shove them in sata ports.

 

[dg10050]

I looked at some IDE to SATA adapters and they don't look like they work all too well. I'll just get a new DVD drive. Does anyone know of a good hardware tempurature monitor? I want to make sure my CPU fan was installed correctly.

 

[FAST6191]

If you have space you can grab IDE PCI cards (uk site but a start): http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/...productId=20137

DVD drives are damn cheap for nice ones these days so that would probably be the better route or you could get a caddy and shove it in that.

Modern stuff should have a inbuilt sensor which something like speedfan ( http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php ) or even something from your graphics card company can deal with. Log it and read it back after the fact is the worst case scenario here (it should have a display on top option).

 

[dg10050]

Well, I just grabbed ASUS's PC Probe utility, and wow. My CPU is running at 63C with the fan running full blast and it says my motherboard (chipset?) is running at 49C. I just did some Googling and I guess this is normal for this CPU.

EDIT: I just ran two instances of Prime95 (one on each core) and CPU temp went up to 75C and continued to climb. So there's apparently something wrong. I'm going to reapply Arctic Silver 5 and see what happens.

EDIT 2: Well, I figured out a couple of reasons the CPU temp was so high. One reason was that there was no airflow. I accidentally led all of my cables around to one side of the fan thinking that it was the intake side, but I just looked a little closer and found that it is the output side. So I moved my cables around a bit and the temp dropped about 10 degrees. I also turned the fan up on my power supply. This seems to have also dropped system temps a few degrees. I now have a 55C idle CPU temp and 45C chipset temp. I just ran Prime95 for a minute and my CPU temp still managed to climb to 71C. :\

 

[crkdshad]

Maybe the heatsink isn't on correctly? My cpu is running at 33c. Maybe this line of amd chips run really hot :|

 

[kellyan95]

You know that the fan is supposed to blow on the heatsink, not suck air away, right?

 

[Banger]

You know that the fan is supposed to blow on the heatsink, not suck air away, right?

Not exactly. It is just most common, but there are a few that blows air out rather then pulls air in. It depends on the way the heat sink is designed.

 

[dg10050]

You know that the fan is supposed to blow on the heatsink, not suck air away, right?

Yeah, it seems obvious but somehow I totally didn't realize this. Anyway, I reinstalled the fan so that it blows toward a case fan that a have on the rear of the case (This fan sucks air out of the case). My idle temp is now 51C and it's 64C under load. It still seems way too hot though. :\
Maybe I didn't apply the Arctic Silver correctly. Am I still supposed to put a small amount (size of about 1 and a half grains of rice) in the middle of the CPU heat spreader? Is there anything that's supposed to be done differently with a dual core CPU? The instructions on the Arctic Silver website say that I should just put one small dot just like single-core CPUs.

BTW, excerpt from Newegg review of the fan: "Using this unit for my AMD 6400+. Temps idle (during winter) at 26-28C. Under load they dont exceed 34C."

Another review: "I have this behemoth cooling an AMD Athlon X2 6400+ 3.2 GHz, on an Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe mobo, in a Silverstone Kublai KLO2B case. It idles between 28-33 (lower than the mobo temp), and peaks at 43. I am using Arctic Silver 5, which hasn't fully broken in yet, and am running everything stock. At full speed this thing gets a little noisy, but with my fan-control software, it never runs max, and is therefore very quiet and efficient."

 

[dg10050]

Sorry for the bump, but I just realized something important. The Arctic Silver that I'm using is probably about 2 years old. I'd imagine this is a large part of my issue. I'm probably going to try out some of the thermal grease that came with my fan.

 

[dg10050]

Sorry for the second bump, but some people may find this interesting. I finally found out what the issue was. Vista. I just reinstalled Ubuntu and bam, I'm idling at 25C.

I don't know if Vista was causing the CPU to actually get that hot or if the software I was using was just misreading the temperature. But still, that's a pretty huge change in temperatures.

 

[FAST6191]

Age: silver does not oxidise all that well so 2 years probably would not affect it (not sure about the suspension fluid but given that it has to survive higher temperatures I am willing to be otherwise. I will however say modern arctic silver (v5 is the current one) is far nicer than some of the predecessors.
It will probably be almost welded on now so you may have to take a hairdryer to it for a short period and twist and/or slide ever so gently.
I generally apply it with a piece of stiff card (a cereal box held in a dhslloe curve between first thumb and ring finger) to the processor itself.
The manufacturers instructions are as good as any too:
http://www.arcticsilver.com/ins_route_step2amdas5.html

The temperature due to the OS: I doubt misreporting has anything to do with it (it is a fairly simple BIOS read).
Have a look at your BIOS options especially at the waitstates/power saving you have set up (it has been quite some time since I played with high end AMD stuff so the terms are likely to be different): for games and overclocking stuff the options (mainly the reduce clockspeed when not in use option: can create some penalties when overclocking in terms of performance). I do not doubt vista added some extra CPU cycles but that is a profound difference.

 

[kellyan95]

Try CoreTemp rather that Speedfan. Or try Speedfan rather than CoreTemp. Whatever you were using to read temps, use something different.

 

[dg10050]

I ended up using the thermal paste that came with the fan. It's apparently not too bad. Anyway, it didn't affect the temperature at all. I tried a couple of apps and they all report the same temp. Right now I'm at 43C. I'm not going to mess with it much more. Once I get a new DVD drive, I'll reinstall XP and see what the temp is like.

 

[cubin']

Temp is fine if it's in Fahrenheit.

 

[dg10050]

That temp would be amazing if it was in Fahrenheit... >_>

 

[Jiggah]

Yea, Arctic Silver needs to be applied correctly. Small, very small drop of AS and then spread it out with something flat across the processor. Too much and you cause the AS to go off the processor onto the board and that's a problem especially since it's conductive.