R500 Core 2 Extreme shutoff/crash problems

[excal32]

My R500 with a Core 2 Extreme X9100 has been running fine for a little bit. However it recently has become really unstable. I can't figure out if the problem is that I am using a 65W adapter - I don't have my 90W adapter around to test with for now. But would this really be the reason why it's crashing? It was able to work fine plugged in before. If it can't run without 90W I might have to take the Core 2 Extreme out of it.

[TPFanatic]

What are the crashes like? Are you sure they're power supply related and not due to thermal issues? Core 2 Extreme is a little on the hot side of things and the R500's igfx heatsink, despite having a single pipe, actually was pretty decent when I had one. Although that was with a T6570 processor which is so slow it's incapable of running hot.


Just in case the issue is thermal-shutoff related, I'm proud to recommend repasting it with Arctic Silver 5. My sister's W500 was running unnecessarily hot and my Z60mF couldn't render a video without overheating - they were both running with generic gold paste, and after repasting everything with AS5 the Z is 15 degrees cooler on 100% cpu load, and the W500 is 20 degrees cooler, Celsius. AS5 is the best.
....unless it's already using Arctic Silver 5.


If the issue ultimately is due to the PSU, you should be able to grab a genuine 90 W brick from the Feebay for around $15, or someone could you one here. The 90 W brick is noticeably larger and heavier than the 65 W but it is still portable.

[excal32]

The problem is that the machine isn't terribly useful to me if I can't use it on battery power or a 65w adapter :/

It probably is either thermal or due to the cpu trying to pull an extra 10 watts than the stock CPU. I used not AS5 but a similarly performing thermal paste. I've used the same on upwards of a dozen thinkpads that all run cool and great so I know the paste isn't bad...

I think it's either thermal or power related because it ran without any problem with the Celeron CPU it came with... which is 35w rated. I had previously used p series cpu in R500 which is 25W and that ran great...

[RealBlackStuff]

I really think you should spend a few dollars on a 90W PSU: http://www.ebay.com/itm/201719608853
And the days of AS5 are numbered.
New champions are Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut or Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut.
Added advantage: no more silly 200-hour burn-in!
http://overclocking.guide/thermal-paste ... gen-ln2/6/

[excal32]

Sorry for not making it clear: I do own a 90W PSU and it works on that but I was hoping to use it stable on battery and 65w as well. It seems that is not possible so I will be rolling back to a "p" series CPU @ 25w! I had only been using it plugged in with my 90W for the first week or so I used it, so I noticed no issues...

[wujstefan]

... and why not, say, T9900? Should be pretty the same performance while eating a bunch of watts less.

Or maybe you may try to use throttlestop or similiar to work your CPU around? Reducing voltage you may see yourself working on 65W PSU, and stable. From what you said I feel that your PSU is just not capable of providing your system enough power.

As for the thermal issue, I don't think this is it. However, get some good thermal compound; I personally found AS5 a bit worse lately and switched to Noctua NT-H1; am really happy with it now.