MSI motherboard overheating CPU shutdown feature...

[itena]

Hello everyone,

The other day I put together a computer system and did not realize that Athlon CPU's overheat in as little as 1-2 seconds if not sooner.

I bought an OEM version of the Athlon 1400 (socket A) Duron CPU so it did not come with a heatsink and fan. Since I had a spare heatsink and fan I used it. Unfortunately it was not adequate enough to cool the CPU so the motherboard took it upon itself to shut all power off, (before damage can occur to the motherboard or CPU is my guess). I would have to wait about 10 seconds before I could turn the power on, but again the above would occur.

Not realizing that this was the intended design, I spent the next hour trying to figure out what could be wrong. I spent another hour with the reseller's technicians that sold me the mainboard, as to what the problem could be. After switching the heatsink and fan to a larger type, the system would post and continue to stay on. Problem solved???

I read the motherboard manual and it only warns the system builder to take all the necessary precautions to cool the CPU. Nowhere did I find in the manual about this feature (except in the BIOS "system health" menu setting "shut system off when CPU temperature reaches 60, 65, 70, 75 degrees Fahrenheit", something to that effect). I usually use Intel CPU's and motherboards which I also find heat up but nowhere near as quick and the AMD CPU's.

I know that in the BIOS settings a person could see the system health screen where it would show the system temperature, CPU temperature, CPU fan speed, etc...but in my case I could not even get to the BIOS settings to see the system health due to the system board shutting power off as quickly as I would turn the power on.

I was wondering if anyone ever experienced this type of problem in the past, and if all motherboards come with this protective feature. (It's a good feature but a person who has not experienced the above would probably guess that the motherboard, CPU, or RAM was faulty).

I never would have thought it was the CPU overheating in 1 to 2 seconds of powering on the computer, and the mainboard design was to shut off the power to protect the system from damage due to heat. If that is the case it may very well be that heat could be causing a lot of system problems (freezing, lock-ups, ram error messages, unexpected powering off of computer, etc.), that we unknowingly think is caused by other things.



Thanks to all who reply,

Ismael

[John Prophet]

Actually a cpu can die in less than 10 seconds...more like 1 second if it had no heatsink at all.

Maybe you didnt quite have the heatsink on exactly right the first time.

I would think it would be a REALLY small heatsink for it to cut off in just 10 seconds...unless it was not quite on exactly right.

Was it a socket 7 heatsink by any chance??

What are your temperatures now after it has been running a while?

JP

[ragtop]

I think most of the newer mainboards have the high temp shutdown feature on them. It really is a good feature - but to ease troubleshooting, I agree they should provide some indication of why the system shut down.

Still - even a really bad HSF shouldn't let the CPU get hot that fast. It's almost certain that you had an installation problem that went above & beyond a HSF that was simply "too small"

Anyway - I'm glad you got it figured out & apparently didn't do any permanent damage. I'm sure that's one mistake you'll never make again.