Dustpuppy Posted July 21, 2005 Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 I've just been given a very elderly HP that I'm trying to resurrect as an abiword/firefox machine (64 MB ram, 800MHZ Athlon). I've had to put in a new harddrive (160GB, maxtor) as the old one was screwed completely by windoze and adware/virii. I've put Damn Small Linux on it as I don't think it would cope with Mandy, even with Icewm or fluxbox. It installed fine, but there seems to be problems with overheating. After about half an hour (from a cold start) it will lock up completely, to the extent that a hard switch-off is the only thing that will work. It's also scorchingly hot. As far as I can tell, the heat is coming from the processor's heatsink. The fan that's over the heatsink (rather than the power unit fan) isn't working, so the obvious thing to do is replace the fan - but what I wanted to ask was if this sounds like an overheating problem or something else. Do you reckon this will be solved by a new fan, or is the system just screwed? Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted July 21, 2005 Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 replace the fan athlons run hot as it is...gotta have a working fan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 I'll second that ! Thermal paste, heatsink, and working fan are vital to making your system purrrr (unless you buy a cheap fan and then it will make loud growling noises). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Athlon 800 you say? Socket A version right? That could be Thunderbird core, the second hottest CPU core in history (the hottest is Prescott). Definitely need new heatsink/fan. Also buy case fans if you can to improve air circulation inside the case. If you have extra money, buy a good thermal paste like Arctic Silver. BTW, you don't need to spend a lot of money for good and silent heatsink/fan for Athlon Socket A. A Maschool/Spire/Speeze WhisperRock is only about 15 dollars from newegg. I am not sure where you are located, but you should have similar brands in your area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustpuppy Posted July 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 It's now purring like a kitten B) . New fan installed, I went for a decent £10 one, and it's working so well that I even put Mandrake on it. It locked up once during the install, but I've had several hours of uptime since with no problem. And you can no longer use the case as a barbeque. Now all I need is some more ram. Thanks all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted July 23, 2005 Report Share Posted July 23, 2005 That thing isnt old, it could run mandrake with no problems at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustpuppy Posted July 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 As indeed it is - see sig, desktop 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramfree17 Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 my home system is a Duron 800Mhz with 128MB SDR[1], 60GB HDD, Mandriva LE2005 + Fluxbox + Rox. it is no gaming rig but up to the task of doing the tasks I assign to it (development, document writing, etc.) [1] I found out that one of hte 128 chips was faulty and causes the bootup to sometimes fail so I took it out. ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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