Screwy Intel BIOS

Mushroomcloud

New Member
Here's one for you, Using speedfan as a monitor i discovered something alarming in the way the BIOS controls the fans on Intel 915 motherboards. While running speedfan as a monitor, but not as a controller, i did some folding at 100%. I disconnected all my non controlled fans, and I watched the case temperature rise to the mid sixties before the BIOS decided to increase the front and rear case fans from tick over speed. If the recommended temperature is 38c, and the BIOS will kick the front and back fans in at about 65c, the pentium temperature rises like a runaway train.

It was at that point i found out about the Intel Bios control of the Pentium 4 fan. The temperature at the cpu was in the low to middle sixties when the BIOS evenually kicked the cpu fan in, it reached 100% speed the cpu temperature of 70c. The Intel BIOS is is the latest, it's not corrupt, and is on default settings. The reason i updated the BIOS from the last one was because of this problem. This designer flaw is going to shorten the life of more than a few pentiums. My BIOS is not unique to my motherboard, it is used on just about every Intel 915 motherboards there is. Speedfan does a wonderful job af keeping the pentium at 40c, and if third party software can do it, then so can the BIOS. The flawed Intel BIOS is the latest, it's not corrupt, and is set on default. The Pentium has a high temperature throttle, that protects the thing from being damaged, the Bios ensures though, that the temperature is high enough to shorten its life, and that has to be good for Intel's profit margins. :mad:
 
IMO (and a great many others) Intel chipsets are way better than VIA. The BIOS is independant of the chipset, it is the motherboard manufaturer that chooses the BIOS type (be it pheonix/award, AMI or something else). Who makes the board that you have Mushroomcloud?

The fan on a P4 should be spinning at all times, while the case temperature is low it should be somewhere around 2700RPM and at high case temps it kicks up to ~5000RPM. Without 3rd party fan control software or fan controllers my P4 will max out at 45-50C under normal case temperatures.
 
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