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AMD And THG update
Mhrmnhrm writes "In the interests of responsible journalism, the gang over at Tom's Hardware has developed this article in the interests of setting the record straight about their original AMD burn-out video, and the new release (possibly from AMD) of this past week. It would seem that BOTH videos are correct, and that the question of whether or not somebody is hiding something depends entirely upon your own point of view."
It is much more likely for a fan to die on the heatsink, than for the heatsink to fall off on its own. Someone should do a test to see if this also causes chip failure or if the sensors on the motherboard can shut down the computer before anything is damaged. The results would mean a lot more to actual users.
But in the end - its really not an issue. Yes, existing Athlon owners are at a SLIGHT risk of failure if their heatsinks fall off (I'd love to see REAL stats on how often THAT happens) But in the end, its still cheaper to replace your Athlon once than to go with an equivalent Pentium 4. So lets be glad AMD listened to the folks at Tom's Hardware - realized they were getting a black eye, and did something about it. Hopefully in a few months we can buy mobos with the Maxim chip safty valve or some tryp of clock throttler. Then the Pentium freaks will have to argue over real stuff like benchmarks and performance instead of making snide comments about Athlons burning you house down.
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I say good work to 'em. It seems THG was correct all along, but I couldn't detect the faintest sense of gloating or grandstanding in their article. They've pointed out a fairly big problem with some of AMD's chips, AMD have responded with new info to MOBO manufacturers (who will no doubt consider this new feature fairly important after the attention the orriginal article on THG received). Great. No threats of legal action by either side (AFAIK), no finger pointing, no FUD. Now if everyone could behave like this......
Remember that thing with the IBM hard drives ? I still don't know who to believe.
I think this problem is only going to get worse. In the interests of responsible journalism, could someone at slashdot investigate, and actually come to an editorial conclusion ? The truth is out there, I just don't have time to sift through all the spin and hype to get at it.
Who does ?
In the more common case of the CPU fan failing, the CPU will heat up more slowly. Hence the other protection mechanisms in the CPU will be used, and the user will get a chance to save their data.
However, AMD should have designed the safety circuit they have shown off in the article INTO the actual CPU itself, so it can save itself. And it should save itself by basically clocking itself down to 100MHz or slower, so that data loss does not occur and the user can save their data. Hopefully this will be implemented in a future revision of the CPU.
However, the instances of CPU heatsinks falling off are extremely rare, and probably attributable to either a poor initial fitting of the heatsink, or a bad socket with a weakened retention mechanism. In a tower case, the heatsink would probably fall onto the graphics card or spring onto the memory and damage these anyway...
... the video released by AMD that showed no overheating problems? I didn't spend the time/bandwidth downloading it, but IIRC the claim was that it showed Quake3 running even after the heatsink was removed.
This is contradictory to the claim that AMD's fix is to close-down the motherboard.
The Tom's Hardware Article, although it was informative as TH articles usually are, made no comment on this video. Does it exist? What did it really show?
Enjoy Y2K? Roll-on Year 2037!
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This protection doesn't exist for old (current) boards
- It just shuts down the whole system (i.e. crash)
- AMD didn't bother to mention that this is a patched board that they're using.
You could probably do a board design that, instead of shutting down the whole machine, switched it to 100MZ (or some other 'safe' clock speed), but AMD hasn't quite gotten around to that, (yet).Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
So both articles are right adn wrong?
Ummm... like, read the articles dude.
Both are right, THW is more right, but neither are really wrong. TomsHardware used equipment that is currently available to people today. AMD responded by correcting the problem, and then making a new demonstration based on the corrections. So now, going foward, new motherboards are likely to be based on the corrections.
it should be integrated into the cmos to choose if you want to shut off the power instantly, or throttle the cpu to a lower speed and managable temp to let the system shut down properly. I'm sure a 1.5GHz cpu could function at a low temp if reset to a 66mhz bus (or even 33) and lower multiplier, just enough power to save any data and exit gracefully.
:P
then again, isnt that what intel got bashed for doing with their p4? i'm not sure on the specifics of the why's how's and when's of p4's power throttle, all i remember is people pointing at p4 and saying "bad". Doesnt sound so bad now tho.
I imagine the most important point to any failsafe like that is letting the user know clearly why exactly their computer shut down, or is running incredibly slow. maybe having the soundcard play some 70's pron music in the background would be a good enough indication that something is getting too hot?
Several things strike me as odd about this "news" (2nd article) and the first article which spawned it.
;)
-"Siemens assured us that the thermal protection circuitry is definitely working on their motherboard." (1st article)
Well, it did not work anyway, whoops. And therefore AMD must be at fault here?
-"We rushed to the telephone to confer with Siemens. The engineers assured us that what we had seen was for real. The thermal diode of Palomino is unable to react quickly enough. Only 1 degree/s is what the thermal diode is able to handle." (1st article)
Okay, they check with Siemens. Why not have a chat with AMD? If the thermal diode can only work this slow, why can the AMD engineers make a working shutdown with a common electrical component?
-"AMD showed us how all Palomino CPUs could be protected against overheating with relatively little effort." (2nd article)
Wonder why Siemens could not make this? They where the ones who claimed that the MB would protect againt meltdown, and that it worked. AMD said that the thermal diode worked. And showed it on a modified MB, which have no protection from the start.
THG is making a big fuss, about a somewhat minor problem. And THG was too biased against AMD, I can only hope I was biased enough the other way
And what is up with this "We saved the hardware manufactors and you" theme in the 2nd article?
Are they losing commercial revenue?
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Toms hardware originaly covered this. Whilst the majority of problems you will experience is a failed fan and therefore a slower temperature rise. The issue of whole heatsinks falling off is becoming more of an issue as CPU's get faster they get hotter, hotter means bigger headsink/fan systems. Bigger means *heavier*, Heavier means the little plasic bits that the sink is clipped to can break!
-- Vagnerr - (www.vagnerr.com) Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
AMD zone also has an update on this story. The most interesting thing (to me) is that they have a 2nd video that show the P4 shuts down. With possible data loss like the modified XP tom was shown in munich.
OK, I suppose I want to see AMD as the good guys here, since I love their products. Even so - I can see how things could spin a little more in their favour if you're inclined to be generous.
Firstly, let me say that I belive that thermal protection integrated into the CPU, like to P4 has, would have been the best way to go - but then we'd all be complaining about how expensive the new Athlons are, wouldn't we? AMD give us lots of grunt for our dollars, and we can't expect them to pack every little feature into the CPU for the great prices they give us, any more than we can expect Apple to sell us an iPod for 50 bucks.
Now, the original article at Tom's has the following interesting quote ...
We rushed to the telephone to confer with Siemens. The engineers assured us that what we had seen was for real. The thermal diode of Palomino is unable to react quickly enough. Only 1 degree/s is what the thermal diode is able to handle.
I pointed this out the other day, too. A Siemens Engineer was consulted. Excuse me? An AMD CPU just fried itself on a Siemens-made board, and they don't ask the CPU manufacturer why it happened - they ask the board manufacturer. That's not where I'd be directing my enquiries if I was doing the test.
Now AMD prove that with a simple external board, everything shuts down and saves the CPU - just like we'd want to happen. To me, this suggests that the thermal diode has no problems reacting in time, and that maybe the board manufacturers screwed up or cut some corners when they were developing support for it.
It's understandable, for the same reason AMD didn't pack the chip full of power management goodies. Keeping costs down on goods that are bought by very price-conscious buyers looking for maximum performance at the best price. They implemented support that was adequate for a fan failure, which is the most likely thing that'll happen in real life. They could well have decided that a simpler circuit was all that was necessary, since a heatsink isn't likely to fall off.
Most likely we'll never know the full sotry. Everyone will blame everyone else, and in a year or so we'll forget all about it because the hardware will be obsolete. We'll have new problems. In the meantime, everyone has the message that they should be careful that they install their CPU cooling devices properly. AMD will recover from any negative press. Hell, Intel put out a bunch of CPUs that couldn't do Math at one point, and they survived. :)
Wasting your time since 1997.
Let me get this straight - no, really. If I remove the apparatus that helps to cool something down, its temperature will go UP? Increased temperatures might cause something to melt?
I really don't see the rocket science in all of this. Heat sinks are strapped down to your CPU by a firm metal clip for a reason - they are necessary to keep your CPU cool - and by 'cool' I mean 'functioning'. Run a current through a thin piece of metal and the metal heats up. Physics. Try it yourself with some thin copper wire and a 9V battery.
Motherboards that are equipped to switch off when things get too hot would be great, but how many of you have had your heat sinks fall off? I am guessing a very small percentage - hardly worth the economic cost of equipping all motherboards with the sensor device. (Remember, that cost will just filter down to us anyway, so you might as well buy the device separately if you are worried.) If you're kicking your PC down the stairs twice a day, it might be worth investing in a little protection, but chances are you've got other worries by that point.
First of all, there is nothing wrong with AMD processors and never has been in terms of design and engineering (certainly from K5 upwards). Intel, however, have had to recall their chips on at least one occasion, unlike AMD.
It is true that once upon a time some chipsets (particularly VIA) for AMD processors were unstable. But this is simply not the case any more.
Before anyone thinks of getting a P4, they should check this out:
http://www.emulators.com/pentium4.htm
it shows how badly Intel broke the P4, and why it's so much worse both in terms of value for money and speed than the new Palomino core Athlons. And yes, this far outweighs the benefits of SSE2 instructions.
Tom's shows what happens if you use any Athlon
with any currently available motherboard.
While it's correct, it's like griping about no RDRAM support on an Athlon board. The feature isn't supported by the motherboard yet. End of story.
The AMD video shows what happens when you use an Athlon with a thermistor in motherboard that has the Power Now thermistor support..
And while it's also correct, it's basically vaporware until such a board debuts.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Toms stated:
t e_papers_and_tech_docs/24309.pdf). The fact that most MB manufactures doesn't use the diode might tell something about the likelihood of the cpufan falling off!!
"In conclusion: as a result of our findings in the Hot Spot video AMD decided to consider finding a solution to protect its CPUs from overheating and the company wants to bring it to the market"
, but the fact is that the Athlon XP have had a thermal diode from the beginning (http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/whi
Thomas S. Iversen
While I've followed the Athlon performance discussions with no little amount of awe, I've been frustrated by the heat issues and the related power consumption. Due to reasons beyond my control, heat, relatively speaking, is an environmental issue where I work. Humongous HFC's aren't the ideal solution to this problem IMO.
;-) VIA's latest C3 (800Mhz) looks technically "cool" but it understandably lacks DDR support and tick-for-tick its performance still sucks compared to the K7 designs by AMD.
Recently I've started pondering whether it would be possible to take one of the newer Palominos (eXPee+ series Athlon) and underclock it (e.g. from 1,333Mhz to 1Ghz or even lower) via the multiplier and voltage while keeping the external bus speeds (which aren't part of the heat problem) intact or even slightly overclocked.
Has anyone studied the underclocking opportunities of Palominos with the latest mainboards? Waiting for the move to a 13 micron silicon-on-insulator process is starting to get on my nerves.
Also, does anyone know if the upcoming "finer" Athlons will be compatible with the mainboards on sale today?
Or should I just give up on AMD and go for a P4 when the DDR-boards become available?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Intel stuff is just better engineered.
That statement is not supported by most benchmarks I've seen (excluding quake demos).
I have both Intel and AMD based machines and I'm not seeing any discrepancy in stability as measured by crash rates - Windows will as happily crash on the Pentium as it will the Athlon. As long as you cool the AMD properly and feed it clean power, it does just fine. Cheapo cooling and/or power supplies will break any cpu.
The bottom line for me is stability.
The bottom line for me is stability and performance. In my business (I grade children's arithmetic tests), I need all the fpu performance the Athlon can deliver and I'm not particularly inclined to pay 3 times the price for equivalent performance. Nor am I about to rewrite my code to take advantage of proprietary sse2 instructions to get that performance either.
"Yes, existing Athlon owners are at a SLIGHT risk of failure if their heatsinks fall off (I'd love to see REAL stats on how often THAT happens)"
This happens a lot with computers that are shipped (eg from Dell, etc). Thats probably one of the reasons why Dell doesn't do AMD, replacing all the chips that get fried by a heatsink coming off in shipping would be a lot more expensive.
(and I've had this happen to me before actually, although it was with a P3, which of course didn't fry because Intel put some thought into the design)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
That's nice, but better engineering hasn't translated into significantly better performance, has it?
I Dont know of any hardware site that says that an AMD cpu + some AMD or VIA motherboard can even approach the stability of Intel CPU+chipset.
Even if that is true (and that's certainly debateable) I can tell you first-hand that all of my Athlon systems, and my friends Athlon systems as well (including my friends Athlon 1.4 GHz which currently acts as his main server) is rock-solid stable. At least as stable as any Intel platform. On Windows 2000/XP it has only hard-crashed a handful of times ... as far as i'm concerned, the superior stability of the Intel platform is a myth.
My current box is a P4 2GHz (socket 478), Intel 850MV motherboard (tho an Asus P4T is probably just as good), 512Mb PC800 DRDRAM. It runs Linux and FreeBSD very well.
My Athlon runs Linux just as well as any Intel chip. I'd take my AthlonXP 1.4 GHz over your system any day of the week.
I'd urge Linux users not to dismiss Intel chips out of hand. You do pay for quality. Remeber these chips have SSE2 instructions (which even XPs dont have and probably never will), the thermal diode *IS* a kill switch here -- you will not burn them up, much greater memory bandwith than with DDR, they overclock decently (you can usually get 200MHz above spec), and benchmark very well.
You pay for quality? Well, in some cases yes. But in my opinion if you buy an Intel platform these days you are throwing your money away. Let's pick apart the issues you've stated, shall we?
1. SSE2 instructions. A nice boost to performance, but can you name anything that actually supports them (hell, can you name anything which supports SSE?) which isn't called Quake 3? Very few applications support SSE2 or even the years-old vanilla SSE instructions. By the way, the Hammer line of CPU's will support SSE2 instructions, so it isn't totally out of the question that future Athlons may support them as well, though i'm wondering why they would bother if no developers optimize their applications for it.
2. Heat issues. I'll give you that one, at least. If you want to pay twice the amount of cash for better thermal protection (which will eventually be solved on the AMD platform in the future) by all means. Like others have pointed out, it is pretty rare that a HSF will fail or fall off. I've personally never had it happen, but that doesn't mean it never does.
3. Greater memory bandwidth. Is this really relevant if it doesn't really translate into better performance in most situations? It's like your previous comment about the Intel platforms superior engineering -- what does it really matter if real-world performance isn't as good as its nearest competitors offering?
4. Overclockability. 200 MHz above spec? That's probably the equivalent of a 75 MHz increase in clock speed on an Athlon CPU. Sorry, I don't believe that's worth paying the extra money for.
Definitely go with i850 and RDRAM, the 845 is meant for low-end situations and doesnt perform nearly as well.
Of course not. And do not settle for anything less than PC800 either because it will drastically cripple the performance.
The bottom line for me is stability -- I dont think AMD can match Intel CPUs and chipset for that. Look in the Linux kernel source code -- VIA chipsets have many PCI quirks that Intel boards just dont have.
It can match the Intel platform in terms of stability, and it does. I am not a programmer, but any quirkiness with the Via platform hasnt' affected my experience with the Athlon platform in any way, shape or form whether I am using Windows, Linux or whatever else.
-- Jim
On Ace's Hardware, this subject is discussed thoroughly the last days. An interesting article can be found here. Some thoughts from this article:
- the component needed for proper protection of the cpu costs $0.85 (in quantities of 1K).
- "Obviously, Siemens used an external temperature probe and tried to pass it off as using the internal diode."
- The reaction time of the thermal diode is certainly not 1 degree/second: "At our worst case rise of 300C/sec, that translates to a response time of less than 1ms. No way would this result in a fried CPU if power off is immediate upon the signal occurring."
For a matter of fact, an engineer told a friend of mine it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to develop a thermal diode with such characteristics (1 degree/sec response time).
You can find the main thread of this article here.
If there is any company out there with even an ounce of marketing savvy, they will create an adapter board that contains the thermal protection circuit. It will plug into any motherboard's CPU socket and the Athlon XP/MP will plug into it. If they want to add more pizazz to it, they can add an alarm beeper, LEDs, or a temperature readout.
Think of the number of potential customers! There's a huge market of upgraders out there -- people with existing boards into which they'd like to plug an Athlon XP. Then there are server guys who have so many systems that failures are statistically guaranteed. With this device, they'd just have to replace a fan/heatsink. Without it, they've got to install a whole new CPU.
It is funny how people will talk about the instability of AMD chips, but never mention that they've even used one. I personally will only buy AMD for now because they are cheaper and have more power than anything Intel has to offer. So I conscede that I don't have any of the top of the line chips, but I can argue quality and stability any day. I personally run a Duron 800@1000 and a Thunderbird 800@880 stable 18 hours a day every day. Never had a crash in Linux yet. So whose fault is it if you can't get an AMD chip stable?
:)
Look in the Linux kernel source code -- VIA chipsets have many PCI quirks that Intel boards just dont have.
What does that have to do with anything? Since when does a PCI quirk that is patched have anything to do with stability/quality/performance? If it is patched, it doesn't matter! Furthermore, since when is VIA = AMD? I thougt you were saying AMD wasn't stable? Oh wait.. you're contradicting yourself. Not only does AMD make chipsets, but so does SIS and ALi. Oh wait.. that means there isn't a monopoly and you aren't paying for overpriced chipsets.. sorry
BTW, if you have a P4 2gig, I'm sorry. Likely you paid $600 for it, and I could have bought a dual AMD mobo and a pair of 1.4 giggers for the same price of your single CPU. Now do you want to talk performance?
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
The car is clearly defective since the wheels fell off when I removed the lug nuts.
And what's worse is that my drink tasted awful when I slurped it out of the carpet.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Small problem: how are you going to get the heat sink to fit with an adapter board between the CPU and the socket? I think you could actually increase the chance of frying your CPU because you'd have to have a more complicated (and therefore more failure-prone) heat sink mounting mechanism.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I love how your bottom line is stability and how well tested the platform is...
but you overclock your PIV's to 200MHz above spec.
Yes, Tom's right in that any of us who actually buy a motherboard and AMD processor on the open market, and then lose our heatsink, will have our hardware fried.
AMD's right in the sense that it is technically possible to add an electronic thermometer that will cut power to the box if the temperature goes too high.
If those facts are accurate, I don't see how Tom isn't completely vindicated.
I happen to be typing on a machine using that motherboard, but running with the hotter (faster) version of that CPU. In a tower, the bottom of my heatsink is vertical. Should a clip break, the fan and heatsink drop to the bottom of the case, and my machine fries during the time that I'm still wondering what that clunk was. I'm kinda thinking that I want an extra temperature board now. Well no, actually I want my CPU to just slow itself down like the P4 does.... but barring that, I want a temperature board.
The socket for the CPU, whether on the adapter board or on the mainboard, will still have tabs for mounting a heatsink. The adapter could even, itself, be attached to the mainboard via the mainboard socket tabs.
Look at the design of PGA-to-slot adapters made to allow use of Socket 370 CPUs in mainboards designed for Slot 1 CPUs. You mounted the CPU on the board, the heatsink on the CPU, and the board in the slot. Worked fine. Look at the products to adapt CPUs from one family to another. These support voltage regulation and the use of a heatsink. (They are a stupid waste of money in almost all consumer PCs, but they point out the mechanical viability of such a solution.)
In fact, this would be a particularly easy one as there would need to be no significant offset between the two sockets. You only need to connect to four pins (3.3v, gnd, 2-pin thermal diode). The "output" could be a jumper to the two-pin power switch connector the motherboard. Problem solved.
So both articles are right adn wrong? THW used the basic setup most of us would use, while AMD used extra hardware? hmmm ok then............
Well, yes. They are both correct. The problem really lies in the motherboards themselves, and THW's stated that in the first article: the motherboards don't have the thermal shutdown system implemented.
So, in order to show that there wasn't a flaw in their processor, AMD implimented that system and demonstrated that it does indeed work. So, both articles are correct. The processor has the thermal protection. AMD handed the ball off to the motherboard manufacturers and they fumbled it.
I read the first article and was quite impressed by the P4's performance of just going on at a slower clockrate. I also found it quite informative, that an Athlon might not only fry itself, but also the motherboard or even start a fire. The point is quite valid, that the heatsink might fall off during transport (although i suppose one would hear the loose heatsink rattling in the case) and will take a little more care with present CPU/Mobo combinations.
Let's not forget, that the throttling technique got some critique when it became known, mainly because the user wouldn't know about it, and it seemed a cheap way for intel to resolve heat problems with the P4. Toms article showed, that the throttling is quite a good feature to have (it would be even better, if there was a way of notifying the user without counting clockticks). So the first thing i thought after reading Toms first article was: "will AMD something similar, and when?". Now the followup shows, that AMD is aware of the problem, and is willing to spend some effort to offer solutions.
While the Motherboard-solution is more like a quick hack useful enough for present boards and AMD-CPUs, i expect something built into the CPU next time (at least a sudden shutdown should be possible, altering clockspeed at runtime might be a different story, and probably takes some haggling about patented technology with intel).
In conclusion i think things are as they should be: the test has made AMD aware of the fact, that protecting the CPU from overheating is a feature customers want, and they set to work on it and offered a quick solution after a few weeks. Noone tried to ban the story from toms site and people actually got together and talked about the problem without shifting responsibility around.
I still think the Athlon has the better bang for the buck, but i won't mind shelling out a little more money for a mobo with overheat protection.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
"you might want to know that if the muffler falls off, the car will die in under two seconds!"
See, this would be accurate, except it's more akin to your radiator falling off [which WILL kill a car, though not in quite 2 seconds]. A muffler is a purely cosmetic device, serving no practical purpose as far as the engine is concerned [indeed, many mufflers, by reducing air flow, actually hinder engine performance]. Sure, it's nice for us to not go deaf or breathe toxic fumes, but the engine doesn't need one. Just thought you ought to make a CORRECT analogy if you're going to bother.
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"