Everyone Has An Opinion... ******
Reported by: Alan Smith **** At: 10:30 AM
Source: tons of e-mail
Before I get started, thanks to everyone (well almost everyone) who e-mailed me expressing conerns and/or confirmations concerning the movie I posted here yesterday. I've heard stories from people saying Athlons still fry themselves, and I've also heard stories from people saying that their Athlon was saved.
BUT, I think this boils down to one main issue that we're all aware of, but that was just stated to me so eloquently.
The thermal diode inside of the new Athlons (XP/MP/Palomino) is NOT a kill switch. That was actually one of the first questions I asked of Mark De Frere (Athlon Brand Manager at AMD) when he briefed us (Chris and I) on the AthlonMP at e3. Thusly, any sort of thermal protection of the Athlon falls to motherboard manufacturers and support in the BIOS of the motherboard.
I also was e-mailed this:
Unfortunately, the *only* currently available Mobo capable of doing so is the Fujistu-Siemens D1289. On every other current Athlon Mobo a Athlon will fry and possibly explode within seconds when cooling is removed.
Now this may or may not be true, I haven't confirmed it with AMD yet, but I'll be e-mailing them right after I finish this news post.
Here's what I think today. I'm sure that the Athlon cannot save itself with its own internal workings. The true thermal kill switch has to be on the motherboard in which the Athlon resides.
So who's fault is it when your chip fries itself? Heck if I know. Just be careful. Make sure that HSF in on the chip (the correct way, not 180 rotates). Make sure that you have the newest BIOS on your motherboard. Just plain ol common sense will go a long way.
Just incase you're wondering what you missed, check out the video from here.
http://www.amdzone.com/files/amdburn.zip
das tomshardware a schaß ist, sollte eigentlich eh jeder wissen
