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AMD: No Grease For You!
bahamat writes "In a surprising turn of events, this article over at Xtreme Tek explains that the official stance from AMD is that you will void your warranty if you use any thermal grease or if you're not using the heatsink provided with your CPU. Sucks to be you if you buy a defective AMD CPU and put a Zalman on it for the first boot." AMD, the article says, doesn't want you to use anything "other than Shin Estu G 749."
Rubbing alcohol! They'll never know.
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Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
AMD doesn't want to be responsible for people using too weak of heatsink/fans or too much thermal grease. What is the problem here?
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--Ronald Reagan
You do something that could potentially damage the processor (read the article), the company is perfectly well within its legal and moral rights to void the warranty. The warranty is not insurance against malice or stupidity.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Those who bothered to read the article would have found this little gem of a quote from Arctic Silver at the end:
Yeah, and anyone who takes their under-warranty low power, fuel efficient car and replaces the radiator with an unapproved aftermarket part, and replaces the coolant with something that doesn't meet manufacturer requirements, probably won't get warranty service, either!
I am one of those people who assemble a PC, and don't touch it except to clean it out. I bought a retail AMD processor applied the HS/Fan that came with it, and have never had to take it off.
AMD only warranties RETAIL CPUs, OEM CPUs are usually warrantied by the retailer, usually if you buy a HS/Fan from them. So, if you buy OEM CPUs this doesn't apply to you. If you intend on using arctic silver / Zalman, then buy a OEM CPU (tcwo.com warrants them for a year with a HS/Fan purchase). If you want your warranty backed by AMD, buy a Retail procassor and use the included HS/Fan.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
The fan on the "stock heatsink" they talk about is less than quiet, but more importantly is poor enough that in many cases it will not even last the life of the warranty on the CPU.
Ummmm...lets think about this for a minute. The fan fails while under warranty. The whole point of a warranty is to cover failures within the warranty period. You don't want to make a warranty claim and would rather resolve the problem yourself without involving the manufacturer. I don't see the problem here, as it sounds to me like you have no interest in invoking the warranty.
Why do you think WD-40 works similarly to acetone? Because it contains varsol, a blend of three (IIRC) solvents. At the same time, WD-40 is greasy and will leave a film on whatever you use it on. And no, toilet paper won't get it all off!
I have two AMD Athlon MP 2000+'s in on a Tyan Tiger MPX motherboard, and a gig of ram, in a full-tower case with four intake fans -- one on the bottom front, one on the side middle over the cards, and two in the middle back under the power supply. The exhaust fan is the PS, of course.
First problem! You need at least as many exhaust fans as you have intakes, maybe one more if you are counting the PS fan as an exhaust. Turn the two in the back of your case around, and I bet the CPU temperatures will drop 10 or 15 degrees.
When running Windows 2000 on this machine, the operating temp as reported by the BIOS runs between 50c and 60c.
When I run Gentoo Linux [gentoo.org], set up from a stage1 install and compiled specifically for the Athlon MP, the machine crashes as the temperature rises to 75c.
Are you playing UT2k3 in Windows, or using Office? Compiling code (something gentoo does *a lot* of!) taxes the CPUs and generates quite a bit of heat, writing a letter in Word doesn't. That might explain the difference in Windows and Linux operating temps. Also, make sure you have "make CPU idle calls when idle" option set in your kernel config, and check this thread in the gentoo forums about enabling halt-cooling in the chipset. It doesn't specifically mention your board, but it has links to sites that might.
0 1 - just my two bits
Oh really. If you were AMD and you were trying to compete against Intel, what the heck would you do? You don't have time to worry about that stuff right now, and besides, who the heck cares. Ever since I have been using AMD (2 years ago) with my Duron 650 Spitefire (codename) I have never had a problem with overheating. Now I run an original Socket A Athlon (thunderbird) 1400, Not a problem. Yes, AMD should build heatsinks into their processors, however they currently don't and you can do anything about it. And by the way, after reading half of the replies, I get sick of hearing about how loud the stock fan, SO WHAT, just replace it. The chances of your processor overheating (if you install it right and DON'T OVERCLOCK) are so low, it's not even funny. And oh yeah, for those of you who say that the core crushes in really easily, sure it does, if you take a sledgehammer to it ;)
That's funny, because myself, being quite the geek, don't understand when my mother talks about the proper methods of filing a T4 or the odd things people do when it comes time for quarterly reports or when people rant and rave about missing lunch hour at month's end. When my brother in law talks about using six-penny nails when a brad nailer is more appropriate, or running the wrong kind of hydraulic fluid in a bailer, or ...
To them, it's a big deal. To their colleagues, it's topical and interesting; often even a topic of great heated discourse over a ${BEVERAGE}. Everybody's career / hobby has its own set of idiosyncrasies (and esoteric dialog). In that regard, we're not unique or unusual. Really.
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Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
I fail to see your point. If a company provides a warrenty on one of thier products, they are well within thier rights to provide "groundrules" for the use and application of thier product.
Lets say I amble over to the local Toyota deal and buy myself a shiny new Tacoma pickup. I want to supercharge it. Toyota states that the only supercharger which may be used without voiding the warrenty is the TRD approved unit. I put on an ACME one I got off eBay. Should Toyota honor thier warrenty when the engine goes !!BOOM!!.
No. This thread is about warranties on unmodified chips. According to the Extreme Tek article, "In fact, according to AMD there is no warranty at all on OEM chips," whether or not you mess with the original fan. The post I replied to did not address the third-party heat-sink question, but the OEM question. It objected to the statement that in California, "State Law mandates a 1 year parts and manufacturing warranty irregardless of OEM status or not."
So this thread has nothing to do with putting on third-party heat sinks and is about whether AMD has to provide warranties on unmodified OEM chips.