AMD CPUs Wearing Out?

[mr chris 10]

One of my machines has an Athlon 64 3000 and it's just started freezing - sometimes spontaneously and sometimes while trying to do more than one thing at once. I thought it might be the hard drive packing in (which it did, so I bought a new one and it now has a clean install of XP on it), but it's still doing it.

 

It's pretty much been on for about 6 months straight (the last hard drive was a bit picky about whether it would boot up or not, so turning it off meant it might not turn back on), so I've come to the conclusion that it's just knackered it, and it's time for a new CPU... which'd be fine, but it's socket 754 (which are hard to find) and I can't afford a new mobo as well!

 

All the fans are working ok. The PSU fan is running low, but it's a 12cm one and they run slower as a rule anyway.... I thought it might be overheating, but I don't think it's that.

 

Any thoughts?

[Cyclone 10]

what makes you suspect the cpu?

 

Have you used one of the monitoring programs to keep an eye on the various system temps for a while.. that'll definitely rule out overheating.

 

Have you tried removing 1 stick of ram to see if that makes a difference?

 

And you could try reseating all the cards, it's possible that something was disturbed when you changed the hard drive and just needs reseating to make a good connection.

[mr chris 10]

It's worth a shot. Thing is, it's just so random in its freezing. Hmm.....

[neeeeeeeeeek 10]

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/cat/Processors/subcat/AMD-Athlon-64-/-Sempron-(Socket-754)

 

Loads of slot 754 chips still about.

[jonafun 10]

http://www.microdirect.co.uk usually have loads

[markwit 10]

In my experience, it is EXTREMELY rare for a CPU to fail. I would have a look at the PSU. A cheap/faulty PSU can often cause faults of this nature.

[neeeeeeeeeek 10]

If it's freezing I would suspect the CPU over the PSU.

[steev 10]

Try running memtest on it overnight maybe? I've had dodgy memory which has had the same result.

[squirrelz 10]

I'd put my money on a memory problem before the cpu. If you have two memory sticks in, try running with just one, and then the other, see if the hang goes with one stick - the memtest mentioned before would also probably help diagnose this.

[sccsux 10]

If it's freezing I would suspect the CPU over the PSU.

 

I'd suspect everything inside the box:D.

 

Have (way back when) had similar problems, which had been caused by everything from the PSU, to a broken track on the motherboard.

[mr chris 10]

I've currently got it running on one 512 stick, so I'll see how that goes for the afternoon. I also took everything off the mobo and put it back on. just in case it was a loose connection.

 

Now I'm just transferring 50gb of files back on (over the network - I'm a sucker for punishment!), so if it makes it through that, then I'm guessing all is well...

 

Cheers for the suggestions, guys!

[Martin_s 10]

I'd put my money on a memory problem before the cpu. If you have two memory sticks in, try running with just one, and then the other, see if the hang goes with one stick - the memtest mentioned before would also probably help diagnose this.

My money would be on this too... RAM is much more likely to cause this sort of problem.. The PSU would either zorch everything, itself or just cause reboots rather than freezes..

 

.. and the CPU would likely just fall over as well.. I'd get the memtest as Squirrelz suggested and run that to see if you do indeed have a problem with it..