CPU fan RPM?

[lots]

Actually that voltage is rather high for an X2... The usual voltage for the Athlon64 X2 is around 1.35-1.4V

As for the CPU fan speeds.. the temps look fine, and the fan probably hasnt spun up to full speed, because there's not much need to. What heatsink are you using? Stock?

[alejandro_m1]

I had a similar problem with a K8 Neo 4F that I assembled, but it had an annoying alarm ringing because the CPU voltage was shown too high and the CPU RPM too low when using PC Alert. The solution was rather easy, it looks like PC Alert doesn´t work well with Nforce 4 Motherboards, you just have to download MSI Core Center which gives you all the info from PC Alert plus you can overclock pretty easy and safe your X2 from that software.

You can download it here http://download.msi.com.tw/support/swr_exe/mbd_swr/CoreCenter_MB.zip

[newman]

Thanks Alejandro! Will try that as soon as I get home. In response to your question lots - yes, I'm using stock heatsink and cooler, was considering getting an aftermarket cooler but it voids guarantee so I gave it up. I also should have mentioned computer freezing problems.
But I'll just start a new thread for that, with the correct title. Thanks guys!

[pentool]

I've also recently built my system with an AMD X2 4800. The processor has the so called 'Cool and Quiet" technology that you can enable/disable in the BIOS. This will enable the processor to run at 1GHz minimum when there's no load, not to mention it will be quieter because the fan won't run at full speed all the time. Then, based on load requirements, the CPU will automatically adjust it's speed up to the max, 30 times or so per second. If you have the cool and quiet enabled, the CPU fan will run very low, around 800-860 rpm and unless you disable this warning in the bios it will always comes up as a red flag. I in fact disabled this warning and running with no issues since.

Looking at the little AMD cool & quiet utility app, in fact you can see that if you load up a webpage, the processor will run at 1G, But as soon as you load another page with images, the speed immediately jumps up to 2.4G. If you start rendering, after a few seconds you'll hear the CPU fan start running faster.

[rob rhodes]

"Actually that voltage is rather high for an X2... The usual voltage for the Athlon64 X2 is around 1.35-1.4V"

sorry to thread jack but Lots you say x2 cpus should run between 1.35 - 1.4V My 4400+ is telling me its running at 1.44 - 1.47V is that considered high? and could it lead to crashing? I see you posted in my thread about my x2 freezing and it seems tkapeta2 is also crashing as well:http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=351293
Can voltages be lowered in the bios or is that dangerous ground!

Cheers

[lots]

Generally, when over clocking, a person will tend to increase the CPU and RAM voltage. This will usually provide more stability, at the cost of extra wear on the part. Usually the time shaved off the overall life time of the part is not significant enough to beat out the rate at which it becomes obsolete though. In most cases though, you want your CPU to run within its specified range.

For the X2, I said 1.35 - 1.4V, but to be more exact, you can find most Athlon64s (90nm) in 1.35 V or 1.4V. Usually the part number written on the CPU can tell you exactly what specifications the chip falls under. The part numbering method is described in good detail all over the net, and found within AMD's documentation for the CPUs (found on AMD's site).

In most cases I would not expect this to cause any sort of system stability problems, at least not at the difference you describe. But to better know, you should see if you can find out your part number and decode its meaning from AMD's docs. I believe a tool like CPU-Z (or any other CPU identification software) should be able to get you this information.

As for your crashing problem described in your other thread, the best thing I can say is to take out all non essential parts (as this sounds like a hard ware problem). This means use only the mobo, cpu, video card, the primary HD, and one stick of ram. Use the system like usual and see if anything improves. If it does, slowly over the next few days put each part back in and test it out. Keep doing that until you find the disrupting part. If the problem is there in the "bare essentials" configuration, then you've got a problem with one of your more vital parts. It becomes tricky to diagnose without extra parts.

[pentool]

My x2 4800 runs at 1.12V when idle and 1.39V when rendering at full steam. (And I don't have it overclocked.)

[newman]

My x2 4800 runs at 1.12V when idle and 1.39V when rendering at full steam. (And I don't have it overclocked.)

Could you please tell us your complete system specs? I'm mostly interested in what motherboard you're using..
What I found confusing about the voltage though, was that each app reported a different value. I resolved not to trust PC Alert as AMD's power monitor reports a constant 1.35 V per core... that's while just running windows, haven't tried rendering anything yet.

[pentool]

AMD 4800 x2
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (BIOS v.1015)
eVGA GeForce 7900 GT
Seagate Barracuda 80G/7200rpm
Antec TPII-550W
Corsair XMS 2G
NEC ND-3550A

PS: I got my voltage readings from the ASUS "Cool & Quiet" little utility app (v. 1.022), but PC Probe II (also from ASUS) reports the same values. These utilities were included on my install disk.

(I've just ran CPU-Z 133 (www.cpuid.com (http://www.cpuid.com)). It also reports 1.12V when idling @ 1GHz.)

I think it would be important to find out if you have Cool & Quiet enabled properly. You have to first enable it in your BIOS and then in your Display Properties dialog (under Screen Saver tab > Power). There, you have to select 'Minimal Power Management' from the dropdown menu.

As I mentioned, if you do not enable this feature, the processor will run at full steam all the time and you might get high voltage readings due to this fact. Which would not indicate a problem.

[newman]

I think it would be important to find out if you have Cool & Quiet enabled properly. You have to first enable it in your BIOS and then in your Display Properties dialog (under Screen Saver tab > Power). There, you have to select 'Minimal Power Management' from the dropdown menu.

As I mentioned, if you do not enable this feature, the processor will run at full steam all the time and you might get high voltage readings due to this fact. Which would not indicate a problem.

Thanks, I didn't know that, I only enabled it in BIOS.. although I did try turning it off altogether and the freezing problems did not go away. Also, the system froze up twice while I was trying to install Windows, so I think the problem is something else.. Hopefully, today I will find out what was wrong.

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