I need help and badly!!!
 

no sooner have i changed my epox board for a abit NF7-s like i said i would, im having yet more problems with that than i ever thought possible!
now i have changed a total of three cpus out of it to see if there would be any differences in the amount of overclockablity in them (they are all xp1700s) and im having, i must say some very weird problems..
for starters this last cpu that i have put in, the temp reading from the bios is telling me its at about 58C.. (after a few minutes) i know for a FACT its nowhere near that, as on the cpu heatsink, i can physically put my finger on it and its not that hot at all. whilst i was in the bios, the machine shut itself down, just like a click of a mouse..
i have set the shut down temps for 70C and the one in the soft set menu is at about 85C. so why is this shutting down? on my epox board the cpu temps of the xp1700 i had in the board never went above 50C, never. but now it seems to be a regular thing happening.. but as of now when its shut itself down, i cant seem to get it to turn on again. great eh? also the warning temp is set at 65C, i never had any sign of warnings or anything.. it just shut itself down.. also, it never said it got to 65C either...
i have no idea whats going on with this board, i have had so much trouble getting this board today its unreal.. but its even worse then the epox board for everything, overclocking, stabilty and more importantly, actually working!!
something is definitly wrong with this board, has anyone really got any sugguestions on what it could be? its a brand new board, bios hasnt been flashed or anything, its running out of the box....
when i was trying to overclock the cpu, the voltage wasnt high at all (never above 1.8v) same as the vdimm (never above 2.8v) and same with the chip set.. so why is it performing so bad? the board wont boot with the same cpu that was in the epox with the same settings, it wont run at half the settings that the epox did and when trying to overclock it slightly higher than 200fsb.. all i get is problems..
please please please please please, can someone give me some insight as to what is happening with this apparently, great board..
oh and yes the heat sink is on right and there is thermal paste on the cpu...
before the below problem, with a 1.55V setting, cpu set to 2ghz (10x200) it was under load using folding 3.24 and was reading at 50C.. and now its reading the temp at -48C in the bios and in Windows XP using the Motherboard monitor 5 program.. something isnt right here guys... please help me!!
oh and i have just noticed after taking the board out of the case and putting it back in the box, the thermal probe aint there!! what the hecks going on!?!?!?!

I had a board that did similar stuff. Do an RMA. That is NOT typical behavior, and it is definitely motherboard related.

i was thinking it was the board.. something definitley wasnt right, as of now, its not even in the tower, its been put in its box and it going to be sent back..
oh is the board normally meant to be better than the 8RDA+ ?? i cant seem to get good fsb 'scores' (if you pardon the phase) with either of them, maximum is 206 that is stable.. i have the corsair XMS 3200 TWINX LL memory stuff..

sorry, dont want to seem like a jack ass, but could you have possibly had the heatsink on backwards? it has happened to a cousin of mine, same exact symptoms you are describing. he had a thermaltake volcano 6+ or 7+

best of luck with the RMA i guess...

i did check that bit, but no it was on right!!
 

nah it wasnt nothing to do with that.. i have lost a cpu before, but this time, it had nothing to do with the fan being on the wrong way.. if it had it would have gone straight away rather than 5 minutes later.. wouldnt it have?
hopefully they will tell me i have the board coming back, i should hope bloody so after what i had to go through to get the stupid thing!! (oh the abit is going back as well due to being pants)

I believe that what Tim-May was referring to, is the upside down mount of the HSF, which allows the base to sit on the CAM box of the socket.

You wouldn't see CPU death right away, just very high temps, which trigger an auto shut down, if the mobo is so equipped.

well the cpu is still working so its not dead, the only thing i could think of is that the motherboard was having a funny turn or something and just shut down anyway.. i dont really understand why it did that.. it wasnt near its temperature (65C for the warning and 70C for the actual shut down.. i think it was about 58C at the time...)

ben nailed it. if you look on the bottom of the heat sink, that milled out section that is supposed to match up with the raised part of the socket, just imagine a 180 turn with it. it would make some contact, but it wouldnt be good enough to even boot to windows. i think my cousin had his comp going for ~30 seconds before it thermaled out on him.

it had been on for a long time previous to that anyway... 2 - 3 hours +