Well, my subject line pretty much sums up my question.

I spoke to a friend a few minutes ago and told him about Climate<i>Prediction</i>.net. He (who is far from computer-illiterate - OTC) told me to stop doing this, because running constantly at 60 degrees would make my CPU (an AMD64) short-lived.

If that is the case (which I doubt) then it is a very well kept secret here at CP.net. My forum searches for CPU damage (and other things) didn't give me anything on this subject.

Anyone know if his claim is true or not?

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If your CPU is running at 62°C you must have something wrong with your cooling system. I have an AMD 2400+ well overclocked, and it is constantly at around less than 50°C. Even my laptop, running CP doesn't heat up that much...

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&gt; Well, my subject line pretty much sums up my question.
&gt;
&gt; I spoke to a friend a few minutes ago and told him about
&gt; Climate<i>Prediction</i>.net. He (who is far from computer-illiterate - OTC)
&gt; told me to stop doing this, because running constantly at 60 degrees would
&gt; make my CPU (an AMD64) short-lived.
&gt;
&gt; If that is the case (which I doubt) then it is a very well kept secret here at
&gt; CP.net. My forum searches for CPU damage (and other things) didn't give me
&gt; anything on this subject.
&gt;
&gt; Anyone know if his claim is true or not?
&gt;
What is your CPU type/speed (3400+ 2.2 GHz, 3400+ 2.4 GHz?). That matters somewhat. Also, some motherboards simply read <b>hot</b>. You can move the CPU from one board to another with the same case &amp; CPU HSF and there can be reading differences of 10C at high CPU load because of the way different motherboards read/modify sensor temps. I would go to the motherboard specific forums at <a href="http://www.amdmb.com">amdmb</a> and query other users of that motherboard whether the readings are relatively high or not. No matter what you find out, using the ideas from <a href="http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/computercooling.html">http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/computercooling.html</a> to help cool your system will result in better stability, and perhaps, longer lasting components.

@grahamd: Sorry, I should have said, I meant degrees C.

@geophi: I've got a 3200+ which, when running at the default speed of 2200 MHz with the casing closed, reaches 62 deg C. Thanks for the tip about motherboards, I'll see if I can dig anything out there. I was contemplating on getting a twelve centimeter fan to use as an exhaust, as suggested on the page you gave me.

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Well, I don't think 62 degrees is the end of the world. I found <a href="http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/FAQ_Rev05_ENG.pdf">this PDF</a> at AMD.com which says that a normal reading from the CPU should be 60-65 degrees C or lower.

EDIT: Also, there is <a href="http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/K8_Electrical_Spec_Rev_ENG.pdf">this</a> document listing the range of case temperatures in which the CPUs can work. (I believe.)

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Could I please add my name to Graham's question - how do all of you measure the temperature? Should everyone running cpdn 24/7 be doing this, whatever it is?

I just occasionally feel the temp of the air coming out of the back with my hand. I clean inside and out from time to time with a mini paint brush and vacuum cleaner.

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&gt; Could I please add my name to Graham's question - how do all of you measure
&gt; the temperature? Should everyone running cpdn 24/7 be doing this, whatever it
&gt; is?
&gt;
&gt; I just occasionally feel the temp of the air coming out of the back with my
&gt; hand. I clean inside and out from time to time with a mini paint brush and
&gt; vacuum cleaner.
&gt;
Depending on your PC, there may or may not be monitoring software available for viewing your CPU and system temperatures. You can download <a href="http://www.lavalys.com/products.php?lang=en">Everest</a> and see if it can readout your CPU temperatures. It's under "Computer", "Sensor" item. It's not perfect but may give you an idea of how the temps are varying with your PC.

&gt; <b>mo.v queried:</b>
&gt; Could I please add my name to Graham's question - how do all of you measure
&gt; the temperature?

Hi Mo &amp; Graham -

The most usually available &amp; obvious place would be somewhere in your BIOS. Many BIOS' have a section somewhere for cpu voltage, temp info, fan speeds, etc. Asus calls this section, quite appropriately, "Hardware Monitor". The disadvantage to using a motherboard's BIOS to monitor hardware is that you can't monitor it in real-time under load, since you must enter the BIOS to get the info.

So...

Motherboard manufacturers that offer this monitoring ability, often include some software monitoring utilities that run in a M$Windows environment, &amp; display the same info as would be found in the BIOS. Most "Tier One" motherboard manufacturers (Asus, Abit, MSI, Gigabyte), and many others, offer these utilities. They'll usually be found on the CD that comes w/the motherboard, or avaliable from the manufacturer's site, for downloading. For example: Asus calls thier utility "Asus Probe", and comes on an included CD, but is also available on the web site's "support" section, also including newer versions of the utility, available for immediate download.

There also are other aftermarket utilities available too. Here's a few of the more popular: <a href="http://mbm.livewiredev.com/">Motherboard Monitor</a>, <a href="http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?pid=1&amp;lang=en&amp;pageid=3">Everest</a>, and <a href="http://www.sisoftware.net/">Sisoft Sandra</a>.

All these utilities are free, or have a free (lite) version availble. You may have to poke around the site, a bit, to find Sandra's free version. Usually these main sites lead to mirrored sites for the actual download. The latter two utilities, especially Sandra, offer many test, system identification, &amp; benchmarking utilities, besides the basic voltage, temp, &amp; fan speed info offered by Mothboard Monitor. And, (again, particliarly in Sandra's case) they will probably give you wayyyyy more system info then you've ever cared to know about your computer besides temps!!!

But there are two major caveats for temp monitoring:

1] You computer's motherboard must have the innate ability to report whatever it is you're attempting to monitor; i.e. cpu temps in this case (this is done by thermal diodes). Not all motherboards do.

2] The accuracy of monitoring can vary greatly. This applies even moreso, when using a 'third party' utility, rather than a utility supplied by the motherboard manufacturer. Motherboard Monitor may be somewhat more excessive in this case, since the user needs to manually configure the software as to which diode measurement function (cpu, mobo, case), and also what technical type of diode (3 kinds), are referenced for the different temps measured (there are, IIRC, 3 types of diodes, and 3 or 4 measuring points to be manually selected. Everest &amp; Sandra, on the other hand, will attempt to autmatically identify the diode function &amp; type, but they may also be in error, as you may, when you manually configure Motherboard Monitor.

The best set-up is generally using the software utility that came w/your motherboard (or jumping quickly to the BIOS in the case of temp monitoring) but, as I stated earlier, there is a fair amount of variance (lack of accuracy). It's just the nature of the beast.

&gt; Should everyone running cpdn 24/7 be doing this, whatever it
&gt; is?

Can't say what everyone should do, but as an overclocker, I find these (and several other) utilities indespensible. Even if running at stock specs, I would want to monitor my system, irrespective of whether it's running DC projects, or not. I'd especially want to monitor if running DC though, 'cuz DC is pretty strenuous, especially thermally, and that goes double for newer high performance systems (namely A64 &amp; Prescott). I'll also often run Sandra to help identitfy an unknown machine I'm upgrading or attempting to repair. In fact, I highly recommend running Sandra's "System Summary" under its "Information Modules" section, just to see what you've got "under the hood". You might be surprised.

Hope this helps.

Hope I haven't bored you to tears.

Strat

--EDIT--

Ah...beaten to the punch. While I ended up composing a "War and Peace" reply, Geophi got a quick one in!!! :-0

Oh well...two for the price of one! ;-)

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@Strat

So, I gather you overclock. I see you have some pretty high-spec computers. Roughly what core temperature (readings) do you get when running CP?

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Well, apparently, the Newcastle AMDs and the MSI K8T Neo are notorious for giving strange temperature readings.

I've now managed to activate Cool n Quiet anyway, using the AMD driver on <a href="http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000301">this</a> page. I didn't realize before, but it doesn't have any effect when running at full speed. :-)

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Thanks for the info, Geophi and Stratcat. The long post really ought to be copied to the phpbb forum as a sticky in the hardware section.

I shall have to postpone implementing any of this for the time being, as it will require a quantum leap in my personal capabilities. I was expecting to be told what sort of thermometer to buy and where to place it..............

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&gt; I shall have to postpone implementing any of this for the time being, as it
&gt; will require a quantum leap in my personal capabilities. I was expecting to be
&gt; told what sort of thermometer to buy and where to place it..............
&gt;
LOL. Mo, you must sleep odd hours as you post a lot around here in the 0300 UTC timeframe. What timezone do you live in?

&gt; <b>naylor83 posted:</b>
&gt; @Strat
&gt;
&gt; So, I gather you overclock. I see you have some pretty high-spec computers.
&gt; Roughly what core temperature (readings) do you get when running CP?
&gt;

6 - Machines, all OC'd 20 - 25%, &amp; using Zalman all copper HSF's, some modified w/hi-ouput fans. All temps expressed in degrees Celsius:

3 - P4C S478 Northwoods: High 30's - mid 40's
2 - P4E S478 Prescotts (D0 stepping): High 40's - low 50's
1 - P4E S478 Prescott (C0 stepping): Mid 50's to just touching 60.

I'm a little concerned about the last machine when summer hits. It's an excellent producer (my second best), and I may have to consider water cooling, but hate to spend the ~200+ U$D. That's about 30% of the cost of building another cruncher! (I don't use cases for my DC machines. I just connect all the stuff up while laying it out on a counter, &amp; run the whole mess thru a KVM)

Strat

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&gt; <b>mo.v stated:</b>
&gt; I was expecting to be
&gt; told what sort of thermometer to buy and where to place it..............

Oh no...we're much too civil &amp; polite to do that! ;-)

Strat

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Hi Geophi

I am where I say I am, Portsmouth UK almost due south of Greenwich. But I am suffering One-tel Night Owl syndrome. The Night Owl dial-up package gives unlimited internet access for £3.99 (about $7.50) per month, but only after 10pm. As you have noticed, this package is now quite unsuitable for me and is creating havoc with my body clock.

I am in the process of choosing a proper broadband package, knowing that I must make the change before daylight gets much longer.

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Hi,

I´m quite new to this, but have noticed that with Folding@Home I can perfectly set the percentage of CPU usage by Folding@Home. If I set it at 25% it will run at a maximum of 25% even if the CPU is doing nothing else (or ver few). Ofcourse Folding@Home lowers its usage when the CPU is for more than 75% by other programs.

With Climateprediction and Seti@Home I have not found a way to do the same. These programs will always use the maximum percentage of the CPU, even with the suggested threadmaster these programs will use near 100% of the CPU when no other programs are used.

Why can't Climateprediction and Seti@Home do the same? For this reason I am only running Folding@Home, because I don't like my CPU running at 100% all the time, especially with my laptop.

Hans

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&gt; Why can't Climateprediction and Seti@Home do the same?

I believe you can, at least for CP.net. Am I wrong?

Also, for those using MSI CoreCenter to check their CPU temperature I would like to recommend upgrading to the latest version from MSI's website. The new version (1.7.3) reports temperatures about 5 C lower than my previous version (1.6.8 I think). So, I presume, the old version was reporting too high figures.

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Hi JuditHans_Barcelona

&gt; Why can't Climateprediction and Seti@Home do the same? For this reason I am
&gt; only running Folding@Home, because I don't like my CPU running at 100% all
&gt; the time, especially with my laptop.
&gt;
&gt; Hans
&gt;

While I can't directly answer your question, I would like to comment on laptop cpu usuage.

I think your concerns with running Distributed Computing projects on laptop computers is a valid one. My team's experience, over several years, has shown that heavy duty 24/7 DC tends to be pretty tough on the lappys. Usually the probs are thermal or HDD related. Since I've never run DC on a lappy, I can't speak from my own experience, as to whether thier was sufficent maintenance or adequate cooling measures involved in those that had probs.

But there have been a fair amount of problems, including out-right failures, when some peeps attempt to run 100% DC 24/7 over long, indefinite, periods of time on a laptop. Some lappys overheat relatively quickly, and other's have died after a year, or so, of non-stop DC.

The newer lappys may have better thermal management, &amp; be built more robustly, so they may be more immune to the stresses of DC. But, speaking for myself, I would not personally consider a lappy as a good candidate for a 'high use' DC machine, even though the Centrino lappys, using the new Iraeli designed Pentium 'M' cpu, turn in some very impressive performance numbers!!!

JMO

BTW - My comments above are directed strictly towards laptop use only. I run my desktop machines well overclocked, and hard &amp; heavy, stopping just short of a Chernobyl incident! ;-)

Never had a known DC related hardware problem, over the several years I've been running DC. .

Strat

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It's a good idea when you're not using the laptop to place some small objects underneath to lift it off the table and increase the air flow.

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