Win 2000 SP2 512MB ram Athlon 1300 - runs fine but I have a laser printer Panasonic KX-P6300 and the drivers are probably ancient things from Win3.1 tizzied up a bit (latest ones available though). When I print - esp from Acrobat it often hangs, or just resets the whole machine. Sometimes at reset I see a post screen and the CPU temp is up to 60C.

Is 60C too high - my heatsink is a superorb double fan thingie rated to 1.4 or 1.5GHz.

Or is it more likely to be a printer driver issue.

It is a software winprinter type laser and the drivers have always been temperamental right back to when I had a 486, but it still prints very well. The only time I see anything like 100% CPU usage is when it prints, which maybe suggests that the driver is hogging a rather fast processor excessively even after the document has spooled - I wondered if this was overheating the CPU.

But playing games never causes a reset.

Any thoughts? How hot would an Athlon run typically?

 

John,

This sounds very very strange, and does point towards the printer / drivers / connectors, etc. If the other apps are ok, including games then I can't see that it's a hardware issue!

I don't think that 60 degrees is overly high for such a fast processor.

Does the machine just lock ? or is it blue screen of death ? Can you clear the task (alt control delete) and shut it down the spooler or printer control interface ?

I would try downloading the lastest drivers to start, removing the old one from the O/S, you never know they could have old win 3.1 print spoolers, or something??

Anyway the money your earning shouldn't you get yourself a nice HP5MP Laser ?

Cheers Phill C

 

John,

No sign of drivers for the KX-6300 on the panasonic website. They have the KX-P6XXX KX-P6100 KX-P6500, but not yours.

If you running 2000, shouldn't it already have the drivers for it ?

Cheers Phill C

 

2000 did have a driver for KX-P6500 but it didn't work.

If I am printing hundreds of pages of say datasheets from Acrobat or HTML I put four on a sheet and put half the paper in rqd and then turn it for the second half printing on the back - otherwise I get through many trees. Works well, but when the printer driver reports out of paper half way through and then I click resume it just resets instantly like I hit the reset button! Very irritating.

Acrobat reader is the latest version, but will often hang when I have just loaded something from the web and then print it and it has to load the rest. I think I am probably best saving it to disk then loading Acrobat.

I really think it is the printer driver. Will hunt around for more updates. Thanks.

 

John,

When on the internet and looking at Adobe files I would strongly recommend saving the document first before printing. The P1 internet connection owners don't have to do this

Cheers Phill C

 

http://www.kme.panasonic.co.jp/saga/...00download.htm

Have found this and will try it but I think they are the ones I already have.

 

Interesting. Do you have any software supplied with the motherboard that will report the CPU and M/B temps within Windows? For instance, Asus have a thing called Asus Probe.

If not, try http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

It does sound like an issue with the GDI drivers though. Let me have a rumage around.

 

John,

Those drivers do look like the right ones!!

Does you Bios have any reference to CPU temperatures ?

Cheers Phill C

 

Printer drivers are the ones I already had. I am D/L MBM I think there is also a PC health thing on my motherboard CD but it predates Win 2K, but I'll try it if I get nowehere with MBM.

The GDI drivers for this printer have always been buggy.

 

VIA HM seems to pick up temp of 55C in windows rising up to 60 with load. So I think it is the printer driver.

MHM could not find the temp sensor on my motherboard VIA 663AS PRO chipset.

 

OMG, you know what this means ?????

 

John will be encouraging us all to mod our PCs, get more power out your CPU, front mounted heatsink with thicker power cables

Cheers Phill C

 

John,

Yes and a new printer

Cheers Phill C

 

I used to overclock, but in Windows usage I never noticed a difference in performance, but more frequent crashes. Although that might have been win 98.

At least I know what triggers this one.

I wonder if a PC could be fitted with a Dawes?

 

John,

I have to be really honest, I absolutely love WIN98SE, but scandisk is completely ****e compared to 95.

I have recently upgraded my old P3 400, with a P700 gods knows why. The other pc was fine, although I don't play games. I can write quad speed while downloading from the internet and read my emails while listening to music, all from a P400.

Cheers Phill C

PS My system hardly ever crashes

 

Just realised why acrobat was hanging - it was a corrupt PDF. So it seems it is entirely occurring when my printer runs out of paper on a big print and I resume it.

 

The orbs are not a good Athlon cooling solution at all unfortunatly from experience....
Great back in the days of overclocking celerons and running Intel class ships nowadays, bust best avoided for athlons when you need stability under load.

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/thread.asp?ThreadID=63199&ForumName=Computer

Might be of interest to you....


Cheers,


Nick

 

Thanks very much Nick. The Superorb was supposed to be rated up to 1.4 GHz - I got it when I originally got my Duron 800 (so 1.4 was "futureware" and I bet they didn't thing it would be like a lightbulb), so a fan upgrade is a good idea. I don't like running the CPU so hot if I can get it cooler and it seems I can and then prob o/c it a bit and keep the temps lower if I get a better fan

 

I was assuming by how adept he sounded that he already had a case fan in there. Don't avoid all Delta fans, just the 'Screamer' and 'Focused Flow'/'High Output' Variety. They really are that loud.

Cheers

Nick

 

I was going to suggest CPU overheat, check this site aronud 50 seems a good max.

http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kg7kr7/kg7kr7faq.htm

 

New printer - would seem a little decadent? me... a new printer... mmmmm.....

[Edited by john banks - 1/2/2002 10:45:51 PM]

 

It is not Acrobat or my printer. It was my CPU overheating. I rearranged the paste a bit below the Superorb and now it runs 5 degrees cooler. I managed to get 10 degrees cooler by taking the side off the case and pointing a big fan at it.

I have been watching the CPU temp and CPU usage. When a process goes for 100% CPU usage the temperature gradually climbs. It seems the Athlon calls a reset or it happens anyway at 60 degrees C. It seems that very few things get 100% CPU usage except Acrobat for some strange reason and my printer driver when I decide to print 100 sheets at 600dpi with multiples on one sheet. Since it is a Winprinter the processor must work pretty hard to spool 100 sheets with graphics in about 10 seconds.

With case on 100% usage and no fan for 20 mins it doesn't go above 57 deg C. I thought these Super Orbs were supposed to be good - or perhaps they were 2 seconds ago in the computer world and have now been superceded!

If I get another reset I will have to get another cooler or even a case fan. But I am not even overclocking and it is "only" 1300MHz! Someone did say these processors ran hot...

[Edited by john banks - 1/8/2002 9:46:25 PM]

 

I probably wouldn't bother with the overclock too much, as general chances are that your 1.33 wont hit much over 1.4G when upping the multiplier.
Also, due to core limitations(varies drastically on core revision, but rare to get top notch overclocks on a 1.33/1.4).
As you probably know, unless you modify your CPU( again, there have rare uncrippled chips released), the only way to overclock will be to up the FSB, therefore putting more strain an all the components. I would get a top rate heatsink and leave her be.....
It has been a long time since the superorb.....



Cheers,

Nick

[Edited by Mr Footlong - 1/8/2002 10:48:43 PM]

 

Why not try a case fan first? It doesn't matter how good your cpu cooler is if the air temp within your case is very high.

If you go for a new cpu cooler I would avoid anything with a delta fan on it unless you are deaf!

Try these places for a case fan

Overclock
The Overclocking Store
Overclockers

[Edited by Doc - 1/8/2002 11:27:33 PM]