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Thread: PWM chips on boards

  1. #1
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    PWM chips on boards

    Hi , today my sons abit board PWM chips shot to 80c and the alarm was set on it to beep if this happens.

    It is a ABIT AW8 -max board , a very good board i may add but that said there is very little info on these PWM chips.

    This is where your tech guys and there experience comes in , could you guys tell me and advice me what i should set the PWM chips alarm at?

    I bought this board off you about 5 months and I don't want to change it if there is something like just changing the PWM setting is possible( the alarm)

    Thanks in advance for the replies

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    The PWM chips do get a bit warm. I was suffering due to watercooling, as I had no airflow from the CPU heatsink to keep them cool. I don't think 80degrees is a concern, although you could rig up a fan blowing over them if it will make you feel happier.

    Are you overclocking?

    Cheers,
    Stephen

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    (sharp intake of breath)

    I've got to issue a little caution over that temperature. A silicon device does suffer from accelerated ageing at temperature and for every ten degrees over 60C that a device operates, its lifespan halves. Therefore, these PWM chips will have a quarter of their expected lifespan if not cooled better.

    A different approach to this might be to question why they're running so hot. Are they being starved of airflow, faulty or just running very high currents? What processor is your son using and is it being overclocked?

    Stuart
    Last edited by Baddriver; 17-09-2006 at 10:47 AM. Reason: Rotten spelling and grammar

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    The cpu is the Pentium D 930 at 3ghz ,its funny cos I don't know how I can give it more airflow , Could it be that it doesn't have proper contact?

    I checked on google and I read that there are ones which can take 120c and ones which can take 80c but I don't know what my board takes

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    I'm sticking by my last post and wish to restate that any temperature over 60C will reduce the silicon lifespan. Industrial/military grade chips do come rated up to 70 or even 80 degrees but they do that by guaranteeing the lifespan - not stating that it'll work forever. A chip at 120C will only last a few months - if you're lucky.

    Moving onto pastures more helpful, if you're not overclocking the processor then heat may not be getting away from the regulator quickly enough (or it's a faulty regulator but I can't help with that one).

    If there's a large temperature difference between the chip and heatsink then you might wish to remove the heatsink, clean off the old thermal transfer material and check that both the top of the chips and the bottom of the heatsink are flat and level. If so then replace the heatsink having applied a thin layer of something like Arctic Silver.

    If both the chip and heatsink are comparably hot then you may wish to consider system airflow. What temperature does the motherboard show as ambient? 30C is decent with anything above 40 degrees really being too high. I've hit this problem with cheap cases in the past although it can be ease by using rounded IDE cables and tidy cable management. What case are you using?

    Hope this helps (despite my getting carried away at the start)
    Stuart

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