Notes-Day5

Both setups are not in any case and they're using Benchmark 3D Mark05 for stressing with ATI and NVidia Cards... it seems the Intel's Prescott is overheating...The Webcam on both systems aren't working today and is being Broadcast by a dually Xeon 3+GHz Rig...

AMD Setup is:
Camera: AMD System

The AMD system in action: at its core is an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum board based on the Nvidia NForce3 250 GB chipset with the Retail AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (90 nm)

The Intel setup is:

Retail Pentium 4 {Presy}at 3.6 GHz and the ASUS P5AD2-E Premium for Socket 775


All Hardware was purchased via retail stores...


Friday, Dec. 17, 2004: Launch of both platforms, AMD and Intel, running at continuous full load. All data are displayed in charts. No problems so far.

Saturday, Dec. 18, 2004: An unexpected error occurs in our home-made tool to display the system running time. The display did not show the accurate time for some time. The problem was resolved and did not affect the stress test.


Sunday, Dec. 19, 2004: Heavy snowfall in Munich, which was nicely documented by our outside cam. Both system are running without complaints.


Monday, Dec. 20, 2004: The day begins with outside temperatures of about -10°C (13F). Several problems occurred. First, the software we use to transfer pictures from the cameras showed weaknesses and quit its job - luckily just for a short period of time, since a member of our staff was able to quickly locate the error. A big surprise was the Intel system, which failed at 11:15 am EST. The platform simply turned itself off. All details are displayed within the published charts. Currently, the Intel platform is running again

Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004: The day started with no issues. Both systems were running perfectly and did not report and errors. However, it did not last very long. At 11:31 am, the Intel system failed again and turned itself off.

After comprehensive analysis of all components we identified the source of the problem. The Tagan-built power supply TG480-U22 delivered a standby voltage of 5V, however could not be turned on again. Our test engineers suspected the Tagan device to be the problem already the day before, since the system demonstrated similar behavior then. Our power supply test station finally cleared any doubts and confirmed this device to be the problem's origin. The failed component from Tagan will stay in THG's test lab in Munich until the end of the test and can be reviewed by the manufacturer.

Tagan's weaknesses are not new to us. A total of five power supplies suddenly failed in our labs during the past year. A newly designed and rubberized casing is unlikely to improve the reliability of the devices.

We substituted the TG480-U22 with an Antec NEO480. The system has been running again since 12:12 pm EST.

Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2004: After we had replaced the failed Tagan power supply through an Antec device, we noticed yet another problem. The temperature of the Intel system increased from 65 degrees Celsius to a concerning 75 degrees celsius (analysis of the temperature diode of the CPU). At the same time, the fan speed slowed from 4000 to 3500 rpm. What happened? During the exchange of the power supply, the cooler's position on the CPU moved by a shade and reduced its contact pressure. As a result, thermal resistance increased, while cooling performance was decreased. Since there is an additional temperature sensor on the CPU's cooler that notices a decrease in temperature, the motherboard automatically reduced the fan speed. To put it simple, The sensor of the cooler reacted to reduced heat flow.

Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004: Both systems are running without outages. In the evening we put both systems into transparent casings. The goal is to create realistic operating environments as experienced by every user. In any case, the result are higher temeperatures due to the enclosed system and closer proximity of the components.

HH