I'm so sad. My Athlon-XP cannot handle Gentoo anymore.

[MrVahn]

I think I busted my CPU. It can't compile large things anymore such as qt and glibc. I often encounter segfaults during an emerge especially when I have my L2 cache enabled. I already beefed-up my cooling mechanism, but it just got worse as I have noticed. My ram has no errors at all after 15 hrs of running memtest. I really love this distro and I don't want to leave. But my machine became weak. I'll have to install something that gives less CPU load such as Arch-Linux or Debian to get it up again. Oh well. I'll just go back to Gentoo as soon as I got another machine.

[Huttu]

What makes you so sure that your cpu is broken? Do you experience similar problems with other cpu-intensive tasks?

[MrVahn]

I think so because I already made sure that the software is working fine, and that my memory sticks are sane. There is nothing else to blame for the lockups, hangs, and segfaults that I experienced other than the CPU. At first I thought it is just a cooling problem so I upgraded the fans, heatsinks, and applied thermal grease.

All of the segfaults I experienced are during installation. The first one in gettext, which was solved by disabling my L2 cache. There are packages that frequently cause a segfault, like qt, which prevents me from having a complete system tuned for my needs. I even tried to install anew to make sure that the software has no problems at all. Same thing happens.

It's ok though. My CPU is already 4 years old, and I beat it up everyday. Plus, I live in a quite hot country. And I can still continue using Gentoo in my much older Duron machine, although it is not my main workstation.

[adsmith]

Honestly, I think it is more likely that some underling library is wrongly compiled. What are your CFLAGS, etc?

[Monkeh]

I managed to melt my Athlon XP installing Gentoo

But I replaced it with a dual Athlon MP box.. I am happy.

[Brainfart]

If it dies whenever you have some CPU intensive task, seems like a different distro would still give stability issues. Why not just get a new proc?

[MrVahn]

My CHOST is i686. I haven't tried having a new proc yet. How would I do it in the first place?

As of now, I am running Debian in this machine. Gentoo is still feels better than other distros.

[mikegpitt]

Areyou sure it really isn't your memory? How long did you run memtest86? You will likely need to run it overnight to ensure things are actually ok.

[nixnut]

Take a good look at your cpu fan. Perhaps it has accumulated enough dust to prevent good airflow over the cpu, thus resulting in instability due to overheating. Another suspect is your PSU.
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[NeddySeagoon]

MrVahn,

How much thermal grease did you apply ?
Did you remove the old compound first ?

The top of your CPU and the bottom of the heatsink need to be very clean, then you put a very thin layer of thermal grease on one surface only. The idea is to have enough grease to dispalace any air but no more. Too much thremal grease is as bad as too little - the CPU runs hotter than it needs to.

CPU failures are rare - the CPU would normally fail its built in tests and fail to boot.

Turning off the L2 cache reduces the load on the PSU, so everything runs cooler. That suggests your problem is PSU or motherboard related. A part of your PSU is on the motherboard too, so it may not be the PSU box.
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
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[i92guboj]

[NeddySeagoon]

6thpink,

I had in mind the Vcore regulator on the motherboard. Failing capacitors cause these sorts of symptoms
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
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[i92guboj]

[energyman76b]

get an new PSU.

When the CPU is compiling, it needs lots and lots of current.

Many PSUs are just crap, becoming weak fast - and one of the first symptoms: crashs when the CPU does something intensive.

Really, try a new one. Enermax are the best (if you don't belive me - tomshardware had a PSU test some weeks ago - a lot of the suckers were pure garbage. But Enermax once again ruled the crowed...).
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[MrVahn]

I ran memtest86+ for 15 hours or so. I think it is sufficient enough.

The motherboard capacitors near the CPU looks different from the other capacitors in my mobo. The top of those capacitors are rounded, as if being pushed from the inside, while the other capacitors are flat on the top.

I'm trying to find a full copper heat sink, but the shops here in my place don't have one that will fit a socket 462 anymore. A shop keeper even handed me a heatsink for a sempron. But I don't think my CPU will work fine even with better cooling, as I have been using it for years now. Maybe some of the components are broken already because from the start, my CPU temp is usually at 60 degree Celsius up to 70. It is hard to maintain a temp between 40-50 Celsius in our country, especially this summer season. My cooling improved when I changed the heatsink though. The CPU temp rarely goes beyond 62 since then. And yeah, I cleaned the top of the CPU with a cotton swab with isopropyl alcohol to remove the remnants of the dried up grease. Then I placed a thin layer of thermal grease carefully applied it on the center of the CPU.

Only now I have given my CPU very intensive tasks such as compiling. Two years before I just used my box for gaming. It's a shame really.

[i92guboj]

[MrVahn]

I can only see my CPU temp during boot time, or in the BIOS screen. I do not know how to view the CPU temp while the system is running. Shame on me. Therefore, 62 degrees is idle time. The temperature usually starts at 38 degrees (cold boot). 55-62 degrees is when I reboot my system. Now I know that cooling really is the problem. But afaik, I set my BIOS to automatically shut down when CPU temp reaches beyond 72 degrees. My system does not automatically shut down during compile time. Because of this, I assumed that it does not reach 72 degrees while compiling. But maybe I'm wrong.

[Akkara]

[padoor]

i have never seen a chip becoming weak like you say. either it works or dies completely.
4 yrs does not mean cpu life is over. it has to be either the cpu clock or capacitors in power supply / mother board
if you are over clocking stop it and try run it in lower speeds.
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[i92guboj]

[padoor]

if many of them have same trouble why not we take it up with intel??
old germanium devices only used to loss their beta /gain with time. CMOS are not expected to do that kind of failure.
it even can be the temp sensor pulling it down
no other processors fail that way there are comps 10yrs old p2 p3 still going fine
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[i92guboj]

[MrVahn]

I agree. I have a Duron machine that still runs fine. And it is way older than my Athlon-XP. I can't use it though because I handed it over to my mother. She uses it to teach lessons in her pre-school students.

Replacing capacitors is a thing that I cannot handle. I only have minimal knowledge about circuits and electronics. I'll try to google it up though. Maybe there is a nice HowTo about replacing capacitors. The polarity thingy made me really look dumb.

I'm having really bad stability issues with my current system. Even Debian, a binary based distro, segfaults occasionally.

Me and my friends/family preferred to use AMD instead of intel mainly because it is cheaper. I was not that knowledgeable about computers back then, and was lazy to google things up. Years came by and we knew the bad side of an AMD processor, especially athlons. Well actually, the only bad thing that I knew about AMD is that it overheats more frequently than Intel. I as a gamer, haven't noticed this problem. I as a gentooer, was really really annoyed with it. Even the motherboard is weak IMO because of failing capacitors.

I do not know about intel though. I do not know about the issues Intel users experience. But I'm planning to get an Asus laptop. The one that uses a celeron 1.6 for a processor. I'm tired with AMD's overheating issues. My friend owns a laptop that has an athlon processor, and it sucks. It shuts down automatically when the temperature rises way up. I'll try to put gentoo in my laptop if ever I will have one. This time, I'll research more about celerons and laptops with gentoo so as not to experience my current problems.

[padoor]

changing capactors is not for everybody
it is sandwitched board it needs special skills and equipments to repair bards of the kind
either you change the entire mother board or go for the laptop option.
i have seen toshiba laptops they r good of p3 1ghz mine is tecra9000 5yrs old
newer models are there in the market abt around 500 600 USD
changing the mother board may be much cheaper as p5 boards are available.
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[MrVahn]

Well, if I'm going to replace my mobo anyway, then why not try it? Messing up will lead to replacing my mobo, and I will eventually replace it to remedy my problem with this box.