Ali, I just received this via my newspaper. If true it could pose a real problem for ADM.
Fear of K6
November 28, 1997
WINDOWS Magazine via Individual Inc. : I'm writing in response to a letter from Corey J. Edmundson (Letters, October) regarding problems with AMD's K6 chip. He said he works in sales for a large systems manufacturer and has found customers "a little scared" of the K6 due to "the problems of the K5 chip sold a year ago."
I happen to be using a K5 PR166 and have had no problems whatsoever. Prior to deciding on this CPU, I talked to some highly qualified technicians, all of whom said the K5 was a great chip. They also told me it's faster than the Intel offerings.
If there are legitimate reasons to shy away from any of Intel's competitors, I'd like to hear something more concrete than vague customer fears.
Bruce Sparhawk via the Internet
I recently purchased an AMD-K6 233 from a local vendor. I plugged the chip into my ASUS P55T2P4 motherboard, and it worked flawlessly. In addition, I bought a secondary cooling fan as well as thermal grease and a heat sink/fan combo for the processor. The K6 ran fine in Windows 95 for about 4 hours when it spontaneously rebooted. Each time I rebooted and tried to load the OS, it would reboot again. The heat sink was extremely hot; on further investigation, I found that the chip heats up in about 3 minutes under Windows 95 or DOS, to the point where it is almost too hot to touch.
In researching this problem, I found that many other people are having similar difficulties. Thus far, stories on the K6 processor have been overwhelmingly positive. However, I believe that there are serious heat problems that people should be aware of. I never had heat problems with either my Intel Pentium 100 or my Intel Pentium 166. My K6 is going back to the store in exchange for an Intel MMX processor.
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Regards, Michaelÿ
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