OK - here I am again needing advice from the hardware experts

[nwg]

athlon 17000 can go to 85-90c

I take that as being a Athlon 1700.

MY old Athlon XP 2000 never went above 35 C. My Athlon 64 3700 goes up to low 40's C under load.

[toomanycats]

I couldn't let this go by. Vacuuming a PC Board can result in electron discharging and short Intergrated Circuits. I have seen many a technician "blow" TV's this way. If you are using a Specialized electronics vacuum which builds no static that is one thing, but a normal household vacuum is a "no-no". Check your ram and it sounds like you really need to upgrade, though, computer is a "bit long in the tooth".

[blutach]

@toomanycats - I used a horsehair brush and didn't touch the board.

@chewy - will test Dx and revert. Have never done a clean install (I presume of Window$ or are you talking about a full format and reinstall of everything?)

Regards

[toomanycats]

sorry Blu. Your computer sounds like my 1700 Amd did before it died: extremely simlar. I did a lot of post on the demise of mine a few months back. I think the Amd get beat after 4 years or so from the high heat they dissipate, just an oberservational opinion, but mine did the same thing. I am now running a Amd3700 64 socket 754 which runs cooler. Bad ram can do the same thing make sure it is showing the amount in your system properties that is actually installed.

[blutach]

The RAM is fine (shows 512 Mb). And I think it is on the way out too. It has been a good servant. Oh well, my 12 yo son will be happy (he gets my hand me downs )

Anybody got some advice what an old man should get? Take it as read that I'll keep my peripherals. Is the 64 bit substantially faster on an encode? Should I go Intel?

Regards

[toomanycats]

I just built an AMD3700 64 with a Asus K8VSE Deluxe motherboard 2 gigs of DDR27)) ram. The Soccket 754 Amd will be replaced with the 939 next year so there are really good deals out there. You will have the option of 64 bit Architecture (Windows64) if you desire sometime in the future. You should be able to get a motherboard processor combo (Amd3000 64) around $220 U.S. with the motherboard.

[Chewy]

minimum amd64 3000/939 or amd X2 64 3800/939
most bang for the buck with encoding

1 gig cas 2 pc 3200 ram(2x 512).

if you want to heavy game get 2 gigs of ram and drop 3-400Aus$ on a card

[UncasMS]

The Soccket 754 Amd will be replaced with the 939 next year so there are really good deals out there.

939 is already dead NOW and will be outlived by socket 754
940 / am2 is the current socket for latest amd's

Is the 64 bit substantially faster on an encode?

yes, athlon 64 are very decent encoding cpu's!

get an x2 / dualcore 939 and you'll not be disappointed


should you be able to wait a little more, get an am2 as the power consumption is way below current processor generations

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1702

http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1601

and dont think about 754 - it doesnt have dualchannel memory support

[vw56german]

I will admit that I am quite the rookie, but did you look in the event viewer to see if it offered any reasons why the system went into a restart? (right click my computer>manage>event viewer>system)

[blutach]

Well, I thought I'd report back. Thanks to everyone for answering.

Seems the issue was a few leaky caps on the Mobo. They are fixed now and the old PC works just fine. My young lad Alexander is in heaven as it is his PC now. Hmm, need to teach him Procoder....

Thanks again everyone!

Regards

[jm1647]

The old bulging capicitors will get ya every time...Alexander will be happy and so are you with the new box :toast

[toomanycats]

I have a in circuit capacitor checker made by a company called Electronic Design Specialists. It is the same one used on the space shuttle. It costs me $169.00 U.S. and has made me a lot of money. It checks the equivalent series resistance of the capacitor by putting a high frequency across it. I have found that the capacitors that are colored like M+M's (electrolytic, not disc) are really crappy.