My computer keeps crashing

[Jason Henson]

On 01/20/05 19:06:22, cali wrote:
> If this is the wrong mailing list, I apologise, suggestions to a more
> appropriate mailing list will be appreciated.
> 
> Reasonably recently I upgraded my hardware to the following:
> 
> Soltek SL-NV400-64 "Purple
> Ray" (Socket A) Motherboard
> 
> AMD Athlon "Barton" XP3200+
> 400FSB (Socket A) CPU - OEM
> 
> Asus DRW-0402P DVD-R/RW -
> Retail
> 
> Adata 512MB DDR PC3200 CAS 2.5
> Adata 512MB DDR PC3200 CAS 2.5
> 
> Zalman Flower CNPS6000-Cu
> Silent Socket A CPU Cooler -
> 
> Antec Sonata Piano Black
> Quiet Case - 380W TruePower
> Silent PSU
> 
> Hyundai ImageQuest Q995 19''
> Perfectly Flat CRT Monitor -
> Black/Silver
> 
> Geforce FX 5200 graphics card
> 
> IBM 60GB HD
> 
> Western Digital 160GB HD
> 
> Sometimes when I run CPU intensive applications  the system will
> crash at seemingly unpredictable times, I have to hard reset the  
> machine as it
> is completely unresponsive, I was running an experiment in console  
> mode and it showed me the kernel panic:
>


With those uptimes I would say your heat sink and fan(hsf) is to blame.   
The old idea about amds running hot is kind of crap, any cpu will run  
hot if not installed correctly or overclocked.  You got that white  
stuff between the cpu and hsf?

I checked your hsf on the net and in silent mode it does not support  
your cpu speed, though it does in normal higher speed fan mode.  If you  
have the fan make sure to keep it in normal mode or it may bake your  
cpu!   
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=33&code=005009010

Try this command several times after you boot.  Then after you boot  
your box do it while under load.

sysctl -a|grep thermal

That will tell you your cpu temp, you'll need acpi on.  If you did not  
put the hsf on right it will go up and you get problems like after 5  
minutes or less.  I set my bios heat alarm to go off and set a shutdown  
temp too.  You might want to check that stuff out in your bios too.  Go  
to amd.com and get that pdf on how to install the hsf, I made a mistake  
a month ago when I was switching out cpus and that was my problem.

Everything else looks good, but do you have some case fans?  I moved a  
120mm fan over near my cpu and my 100% load temp while folding droped  
about 10C.  I am overclocked and it was maxing out at about 58C or  
less.  Now it hardly hits 50C, usaully 48C but it might go down to 45C  
if it is cool in my room.  I wonder how it will do in the summer? :)