Highest Safe Idle Temp for XP-Mobiles?

Hey, thanks guys for all the great info on Athlon XP-Mobile CPUs! Wish I'd known about this a year ago!

I had T-Bred B 2400+s in my ASUS A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe and A7N8X-E based PCs so couldn't resist trying an XP-M 2400+ in one to get to FSB400 (T-Breds wouldn't do it for me). That was so cheap and worked so well so I got an XP-M 2200+ for the other. Hate to put much money in older systems but for $77 to get 3200+ speeds and 512K cache, why not!

I have both running at 11.5x200 but not quite stable yet. I have the vCore at 1.65 and stock copper-core AMD HSFs (lapped) + Artic Silver5. I'm running two 512MGB sticks of DDR400 Kingston ValueRAM dual-channel and don't expect I can do any better than FSB 200/400 due to limitations of ValueRam and the ASUS boards.

I can raise the vCores but what's safe? How hot is safe? Right now I get temps of 46C at idle. Suppose I should get better HSFs but probably won't go higher than 11.5x200 or can be satisfied at 11x200. Still, if you can go 12x200, why not? Really, I just want fast, stable systems that will last two more years without adding much more to them.

Oh, I do have decent Antec full tower cases with two 80mm intake and two 80mm exhaust fans by the CPU + 400W Antec power supplies.

Thanks for any suggestions...

there is no such thing as a "safe" overvolt. anything out of spec can cause damage to the cpu. The mobiles are kind of an exception, so you should be ok at 1.65 which is stock voltage for the desktop version. keyword "should".

I would definitely upgrade the heatsink. 46 is mediocre for an idle temp. max die temp is 85, but cooler is always better.

Guess you're right, Midknyte. Thanks! Kick in a few bucks more and do it right. I go too cheap sometimes.

Just expected that the large copper-core AMD HSFs (found unused and cheap a year ago) would be ok because they're a lot better than the small all-aluminum AMD units that came in the retail box with my XP2400+s (which idled at 54C sometimes). I had to do something about that and those copper AMDs dropped temps about 8 degrees. So I've had a good opinion of them.

A friend recently bought a retail XP3000+ and the AMD unit was cheap, too. A year ago AMD was putting decent HSFs in even XP2500+ boxes just like the ones I'm currently using.

I see the Thermaltake TR2, Vantec AeroFlow, CoolerMaster CP5-8J71F and others around town for $25 or so. I'll have to check out the reviews.

I'd be more concerned about large temperature jumps between idle and load, than with a moderate idle temp. Your still well within limits IMO. Of course cooler is better, but you have to put a price on what your willing to spend to get the extra performance as eventually the cost of cooling outweighs the cost of getting high end silicon.

Thanks for all the advice, guys! And I'm learning a lot reading the other posts.

I found a Thermaltake TR2 in town and liked it - especially its giant copper core so tried it on one system. The AS5 hasn't set in yet but I'm down 2 degrees, hopefully more later. Looks like it'll be 3 or 4 degrees better than the copper core AMD unit.

Still running the twin AMD unit on the other system but will replace it soon.

I've had the XP-Mobiles for a few weeks now and they're great. What a bargain - they're so much better than the XP2400+ and XP2500+. $77 turns a two year old system into only one year old!

right on, dude. most techies like to see how long they can keep a rig running. I got an old socket7 system that I upgraded to a K6-3+ 450. :cool: :D

Hey, that is scary, Midknyte. No kidding - I just set up an old Tyan board with a K6-III 450 last night! Got WinXP Pro SP2 on it, Office XP Pro, Easy Media Creator7 and Encarta 2005 and giving it to my granddaughters today!

I bought that board in the summer of 1998 with a K6-2 350 then upgraded to the 450 in 2000. I was really proud of that machine, it was my first AMD CPU (not counting the AMD coprocessor I had in a 10-MHz Turbo 8088 XT system!). I ran Win98 on it a long time and wondered if XP would work OK. It does - Device Manager came up clean as a whistle.

I forget what the K6-III 450+ model had but it was better than my chip. Some people were putting mobile versions of that CPU in desktops - maybe that's what you've got?

Anyway, it's slow but working great and will get the girls down the road a year or so. Fortunately it has 512MB of RAM and that helps a lot. They'll use it for school work, Internet browsing and burning CDs and MP3s.

Wonder if you can overclock it to 5x100??? ;>)

Here's a thread about a program that allows you to edit your registry to put your CPU into idle mode when processing demand is low:

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=280137

Unlike "Rain" and other similar programs, this registry edit can be locked on boot up and doesn't run in the background using resources. This won't help you keep your processor cool if you're running SETI or folding.

I would estimate that my machines spend 90% of the time they are powered in an idle state anyways. With overclocks in place I can attest this will reduce your CPU temps by 6 to 10C.

The "+" chips are mobiles. it runs at a lower voltage and has an extra 256 L2 cache built it.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.html?i=1406

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20001106/

I got an old HOT-569 board, so max it goes to is 83mhz. I've run it at 500, but it wasn't too stable. 450 is enough. I heard of guys hitting 600 pretty easily, but I'm not about to sink any more money into this system. :cool:

Thanks for the links, Midknyte. My K6-III isn't stable at 500 either so I left it at 450. Like you said, there's no sense in putting money in this system.

Funny that we're talking about overclocking them to 500MHz when on our current systems just barely will underclock to 500!