Folks,

I'll concure with Drew on this one. The Intel 233MMX is rather famously
over-engineered. This is a chip that can take suprising abuse and keep
ticking -- though I heartily unrecommend doing so. The time frame -- 3
days -- plus all other factors are almost ideal if you had to have a fan
quit running.

The problem of heat, however, is one that sneaks up on you. At first all
seems well: you only really notice proformance problems "at the edges"
of calculations, for instance. Most folks wouldn't even know that
problems were occoring. Only in the most drastic cases of overheating --
I was once blistered by a heat sink -- will you notice. The most common
thing that happens with overheating is degraded lifespan.

Taking a SWAG -- Scientific Wild Assed Guess -- I'd say that, given your
circumstances, (and lets give him a cheer for using thermal grease: may
have saved the chip) you've been the benificiary of 233MMX
over-engineering. The most common failure I'd expect to see is a
slightly shorter chip life: given the product life cycle now-a-days, you
should be more than all right.

best regards,
Jim Griffin

Drew Dunn wrote:
>
> There's probably not a cut and dried answer to this one.  The best thing
> that anyone short of an Intel engineer with a microscope could say is,
> "maybe".  The CPUs are designed to operate within a particular temperature
> range, both for performance and longevity reasons.
<snip>
> Based on the projects that I've worked on, I suspect that your chip is
> probably OK.  While Intel provides a particular temperature range for proper
> operation, there is almost always a significant "fudge" factor that allows
> for short-term operation outside of the published range.
>
> When the CPU gets too hot, the tiny aluminum or copper traces can begin to
> degrade.  You probably will not notice a decrease in performance...generally
> speaking, by the time the damage is noticable, the chip is no longer
> working.  Since the heat sink was very hot, that tells you that it was doing
> its job.
<snip>
>
> Drew Dunn
> (Almost an EE)
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> I've got a question that requires the expertise of a EE to answer and I am
> hoping one of our resident engineers can do precisely that.
>
> The other day I was swapping out a hard drive on my bench box..... Tomcat
> III....233MMX..it is in a open 286 case with a fist rate PC Power and
> cooling CPU heat sink / fan.....normally the heat sink feels cool.

--
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Sisyphus was the Corinthian Systems Administrator.

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