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Help! My processor is on FIRE!

I’ve always told my friends, "Don’t buy AMD processors, because they run hotter and die quicker than Intel processors.  They’re cheap for a reason."  THG recently confirmed this with a video that shows what happens to some processors when you remove the fan/heatsink (i.e., what would happen when the fan dies).  On the Intel system, the performance drops, or the current program might crash.  But on the AMD system, the OS crashes immediately and the processor burns up, destroying it and the motherboard.  Ha!  Call me crazy, but that’s why I still say Intel makes better products, and AMD chips are cheap for a reason.

Posted by Anthony on Jun 16, 2002 | 9 replies
Filed under: General

Comments:

01. Jun 25, 2002 at 11:43pm by roar:

yo A, they run hotter for a reason... they perform more operations per clock cycle than intel processors and are more powerful on a hertz for hertz basis.  har.

02. Jun 26, 2002 at 12:11am by Anthony:

Right, but I’d rather spend a little more to get the same performance from an Intel chip, and not worry about my house burning down if my processor fan dies.

03. Jun 26, 2002 at 7:20pm by ROAR:

so you run motherboard monitor, or a similar program, that monitors CPU temperatures and fan rpms and stuff, so that it can shut your computer down for you in the unlikely event that your processor fan dies.

04. Jun 26, 2002 at 10:45pm by Anthony:

Did you watch the video in my post?  The AMD chips are up in smoke in less than 5 seconds.  That auto-shutdown software had better be darn fast!  In fact, it better be an ATX system, and the software better cut the power instantly, instead of shutting down Windows, because 3 or 4 seconds isn’t enough time for that.

And it’s not unlikely at all that a processor fan might die, it happens all the time.  In only 3 years as a technician, I saw lots of dead processor fans, and AMD processors that cooked as a result.

05. Jun 29, 2002 at 11:07pm by grr:

in that video, they took the heatsink off along with the fan, did they not?  If you just take the fan off an AMD cpu  but leave the heat sink on, it’s not gonna fry in less than five seconds, no way

06. Jul 27, 2002 at 5:46pm by Anthony:

It’d still be really quick, probably 10 or 15 seconds. The heatsink is already really hot, so when you shut the fan off, it won’t be long before the heat-sinking capacity of the metal is exhausted. Alone, the chip is smoking in 3 or 4 seconds, so it’s getting really stinking hot.  A passive heat sink is no match for a fiery AMD cpu.

Shutting down Windows easily takes 10 seconds, and a bunch longer depending on the programs you have running. The bottom line is that it’s entirely possible to cook the thing should the fan die.

07. Sep 23, 2002 at 10:15am by John:

AMD preforms better than Intel.

using smart cooling (liquid cooling) for overworked processors is always smart no matter if it is Intel or AMD.

Just like someone saying C4 is better than dynamite. They both do the same thing, only C4 is a little more dangerous but it kicks dynamite’s rear end.

AMD kicks Intel

08. Nov 7, 2002 at 1:14pm by GTP:

My comment I had and still have only amd products i had a situation where the cpu fan did stop working on an amd athlon 1 gig but you want to know what happened? all that happened was my computer would restart almost get back into window’s and restart again until I looked in and saw the cpu fan was not running? now tell me why did my cpu not burn up???? yeah eat it.. AMD lives on

09. Nov 12, 2002 at 6:47pm by Anthony:

To John:

> AMD preforms better than Intel.

Would you care to support your claim with some evidence? Provide some benchmarks? Comparative tests from reputable labs?  Anyone can say "the sky is yellow" but that doesn’t make it true.

> using liquid cooling for overworked processors is always smart

Liquid cooling is risky.  Running water through your computer obviously creates the potential for serious damage to your system.  Plus, a water cooling system can fail just like a fan can fail.  In any event, it’s certainly not "always smart" -- if you can cool your processor adequately with a fan and heatsink, then adding liquid cooling just adds extra risk for no reason.

To GTP:

Your situation is the exception, not the rule.  Did you watch the video?  The AMD processor crashed and started smoking within seconds.  I’m not making this up.  In your experience, yours didn’t fry -- that’s great, I’m happy for you.  In my experience I’ve dealt with literally a small boxful of fried AMD processors, versus zero fried Intel processors.  In any event, I don’t see how being fanatical and saying "yeah, eat it" is helping your side of the discussion.

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