Question about thermal overload protection on AMD CPUs...

[atrioss5]

Does anyone here happen to know if an old AMD Athlon 900MHz, Slot-A processor has built-in protection against thermal overload? The reason I ask is because I think my uncle may have blown the processor due to not using any thermal compound to mount the heatsink. When you hold the unit up to the light, you can see light shining through a gap between the processor and the heatsink. I removed the heatsink and reapplied it after putting down a layer of thermal paste. Unfortunately, the computer still locks after displaying the initial POST screen. It is not possible at this stage to get into the BIOS.

If the processor does have some sort of protection, would it have done any good for this type of oversight?

 

[WR]

Slot A Thunderbird - definitely no thermal protection or much of any power-saving technology. Was your uncle having POST lockup problems before changing the heatsink? If so, you should try to rule out other components such as failing RAM and PCI devices.

 

[atrioss5]

Thanks for the reply. To answer your question, no, the problem did not occur before changing the heatsink. The problem first started with another Athlon in which the fan on the heatsink failed. That processor also fried, so we bought him a replacement processor and fan. He installed it himself and neglected to use thermal paste. Anyway, I guess we'll just buy another processor.

 

[enforcer22]

AMD did not put any type of thermal protection into thier cpus until palamino/thouroughbread which wasnt that great anyways. So no it does NOT have it.

Im not even sure if that can be called thermal protection anyways it didnt seem to work fast enough to help in the toms videos.