Cooling The G400 MAX

[Giz]

It appears that I'm having some heat issues with my Athlon 650 / G400 MAX setup. My system would lock up whenever I would run any 3D applications for a while. As a test I removed the case and left the window open in my office and then everything ran flawlessly for hours.

I left an Ureal Tournament bot match running overnight, but I closed the window and when I checked it in the morning it had locked up again. Opened up the window started the bot match again and it ran for hours. I closed the window, and it locked up in about 2 hours. I touched the back of the G400 and it was very, very hot.

So, is this normal for the G400 Max? Does anyone else require additional cooling in their systems to run the G400 Max? I've got two fans going one built into the power supply and another blowing cold air into the case, and of course the fans on the Athlon and the G400 Max.

Thanks.

[Echo|Fox]

Ahhh. Case cooling. It truly is a science, but its rather easy to make it look like you know what you're doing =)
Having a single fan blow in does NOT do you much good if you don't have fans sucking out, and your power supply really doesn't count.
In my case, I have a single fan near the bottom blowing cool air in, and two up top sucking hot air out. Just to illustrate a point, if i reverse the two top fans to blow air in, my case temperature is 10 degrees celsius higher than with them sucking air out.
Having those fans sucking out improved my system stability so much, i now no longer have overclocking related lockups, and i'm able to run my G400 vanilla overclocked 120% (ie MAX levels) without a fan on the chip.
Neat, huh? =)
My case temperature averages 26 to 32 degrees celsius, depending on how hot my room is. In my old case with just a single fan suckign air in, my case temperaute was a minimum of 34 degrees, and often creeped up as high as 38, and my P3-450 wasn't anywhere near stable at 558.
SO go out, spend $25 and buy a pair of fans and stick them in the top of your case, if you have the appropriate mounts. If you don't have any more fan mounts, get yourself a _real_ case (i highly reccomend the Antec KS-188 :P)


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P3-450@558mhz@2.1v, ABit BE6, 128megs 7.3125ns PC133 SDRAM, SB Live! Value, G400 32meg Dualhead (@120%), Acer ALN-201 PCI 10bT NIC, 6.5gig Seagate Medalist Pro 7200rpm, 13gig Quantum Fireball CR, Yamaha 4416e Burner, Pioneer 10x DVD-ROM, Panasonic e70 17" Monitor, Antec KS-188 24" Tower, 6 year old Honeywell-SUH 101key Keyboard, Logitech Trackman Marble+

[Rob M.]

You may want to try a different 3d program other than UT for testing. I've read UT still has a memory leak that WOULD cause it to lock up by itself after a while..

[kelin]

I know for OC'ing my Pentiums that leaving the case side off, while adding some rather harmless dust, necessitating more frequent cleaning, really helps on the cooling end...
I run 2 6" AC fans...on a bracket pointing right over the G400Max and into the K7/chipset/RAM...really helps...Also, I took an old 486 type fan and mounted it on the back of the Max with some double stick tape...it dosen't conduct heat off but sure seems to help get some close in "air support" (hehheh)...on my TNT and V3 I have always mounted /fan/heatsinks on the back...but with the plethora of "stuff" (conductive stuff) on the back of the MAX...I figured it was better to just be a blow hard...
At the time, my K7 600 is only 2 weeks old, maybe after a month, I will rip the damn plastic coffin heat keeper in'er (SECC package) off the K7...I have done it to my P2 and P3 with alot of success. I have two thermistors to check temps...while they aren't supported on my gigabyte Athlon mobo, I believe they are on the Asus, and will be on others in the future...they are great for checking to see if your cooling efforts are helpful in any way...
Good Luck...
and keep Kewl...
Kelin
1st sys(98)
K7 600 on Gigabyte GA71x
256 megs of Enhanced HSDRAM
Adaptec 2940U2W
Quantum Atlas 10K
IBM Ultrastar UW
G400 Max
3 Com NIC for Cable modem
Aureal Vortex 2 super Quad

2 sys(98, NT, and Linux)
P3 450@567 on Soyo BA6 +III
128Megs of CAS 2 PC100
TNT
2 Vs in SLI
2 UDMA/33 Hds
Creative Ensonic
3Com NIC