I just made a really awful mistake

[izanbardprince]

I was pulling my desktop apart to take a can of duster to it, and I pulled the heatsink/fan out not realizing that eMachines had used thermal paste, like friggin crazy, between the heatsink and my CPU, so I managed to pull the CPU out of the socket, while the socket was locked, bending a whole lot of pins on the cpu in the process, I just went to Newegg's clearance section to snag a cheapie Socket 754 processor from whatever they had, and managed to find an Athlon 64 3200+ marked down to $24.

I guess it's a good enough excuse for an upgrade, right? :lolflag:

I'm just glad I didn't destroy a really nice processor or something, I'd have to go shoot myself.

I tried signing up for a store credit account to snag a rig with a Core 2 Quadro, but my credit is like non existent, which is probably for the best considering how the last thing I need right now is to be making payments on a $3,000 computer.

[il-luzhin]

I went ubuntu when my XP laptop was stolen. Now I'm happier than ever.

From crisis comes......well I try to believe it anyway

[Iandefor]

I was pulling my desktop apart to take a can of duster to it, and I pulled the heatsink/fan out not realizing that eMachines had used thermal paste, like friggin crazy, between the heatsink and my CPU, so I managed to pull the CPU out of the socket, while the socket was locked, bending a whole lot of pins on the cpu in the process, I just went to Newegg's clearance section to snag a cheapie Socket 754 processor from whatever they had, and managed to find an Athlon 64 3200+ marked down to $24.

I guess it's a good enough excuse for an upgrade, right? :lolflag:

I'm just glad I didn't destroy a really nice processor or something, I'd have to go shoot myself.

I tried signing up for a store credit account to snag a rig with a Core 2 Quadro, but my credit is like non existent, which is probably for the best considering how the last thing I need right now is to be making payments on a $3,000 computer.Gotta love how cheap socket 754's are getting. I got the same proc for $35 last month :).

Are you certain you didn't damage the socket?

[Lucho]

From obstacles come opportunities. I have an AMD64 3400 socket 754,
that I bought some 2 and a half years ago, and I can tell you that it's more
than enough brute processing for anything short of calculating the final
decimal place of pi. Use the savings to upgrade the rest of
the machine. More RAM,a stronger vid card, and upgrading the software
will get you more results than a beefier CPU.

[nickburns]

I actually ruined a computer calculating digits of pi. In college I wrote (programmed) 35 different algorithms that computed digits of pi.

Well after about 18 months (and millions of digits) of running 100% cpu time it had enough and nearly caught fire.

The price you pay for loving a transcendental number.

[Dimitriid]

I thought thermal paste was just that, a paste not a glue-like substance. Do you mean thermal tape?

[Iandefor]

I thought thermal paste was just that, a paste not a glue-like substance. Do you mean thermal tape?You ever tried to remove a heatsink that had thermal paste on? It's not a glue, but you certainly can't just rip the heatsink off. The thermal paste is pretty viscous and it tends to get kind of attached to both the processor and the heatsink after a while.

[Dimitriid]

You ever tried to remove a heatsink that had thermal paste on? It's not a glue, but you certainly can't just rip the heatsink off. The thermal paste is pretty viscous and it tends to get kind of attached to both the processor and the heatsink after a while.

Well I did notice that but never enough to force the whole thing out and bend the processor pins, but well live and learn I guess.

[PurposeOfReason]

Thermal grease is basically as good as glue for strength when it's warm. If you want to remove a heatsink that used a lot you should, or it is recommended, to wait a good hour for it to cool off.

I'd hate myself if I did that with my desktop (Intel Core 2 Duo E4400). Which is also why I'm hesitant on overclocking it. I don't need to, don't need to power, but would it hurt? The answer is yes if I somehow mess that up.

[Dimitriid]

Thermal grease is basically as good as glue for strength when it's warm. If you want to remove a heatsink that used a lot you should, or it is recommended, to wait a good hour for it to cool off.

That figures I never did it with "warm" processors. Good to know thanks.

[leathco]

Don't feel bad. Once I only installed the right side of a memory stick, didn't push in the left side, powered on the system, smelled smoke and burining silicon. Fried the mobo.

[Lucho]

I'm sure most of us have some horror story lurking in the background.
My own is from about a month ago. My CPU was registering unusually
high temps -54°C to 62°C- even when idle. I was afraid the cooler was
dying. Then I read that thermal paste should be changed every two years
or so.

I took a look under the heatsink, and guess what? There wasn't any
thermal paste any more; it had turned to powder :shock: :shock:
Now, with a carefully applied layer of new thermal paste the CPU temp
rarely strays above 34°C

PS. The best part is that after two and a half years I'm still using the
original AMD cooler!

[infoseeker]

My PC started beeping at me the other day and after investigating, found that the temperature of the CPU was about 70 Deg C. Found out that the heatsink was totally packed with dust, so it wasn't being cooled at all. Had to remove it and did an annual maintenance cleaning job on it :)

[mips]

Thermal grease is basically as good as glue for strength when it's warm. If you want to remove a heatsink that used a lot you should, or it is recommended, to wait a good hour for it to cool off.


My experience is the opposite. I find thermal paste becomes less hard when hot, when it goes cold it goes rock hard.

I also managed to pull my cpu/heatsink out in one go before with the socket locked, fortunely I pulled it straight up so I had no bent pins.

[satx]

22/7=PI. Pretty close for most calculations....just kidding!

[Epilonsama]

wow i didnt think finding all the digits of pi will use so much cpu power :confused:

[izanbardprince]

Are you certain you didn't damage the socket?

I guess we'll find out on Monday (AGGGH!)

[izanbardprince]

You ever tried to remove a heatsink that had thermal paste on? It's not a glue, but you certainly can't just rip the heatsink off. The thermal paste is pretty viscous and it tends to get kind of attached to both the processor and the heatsink after a while.

Especially after running that Sempron at 2.5 Ghz for the last year and a half. (grin)

[init1]

I actually ruined a computer calculating digits of pi. In college I wrote (programmed) 35 different algorithms that computed digits of pi.

Well after about 18 months (and millions of digits) of running 100% cpu time it had enough and nearly caught fire.

The price you pay for loving a transcendental number.
Sweet! I need to try that sometime! :D

[izanbardprince]

My PC started beeping at me the other day and after investigating, found that the temperature of the CPU was about 70 Deg C. Found out that the heatsink was totally packed with dust, so it wasn't being cooled at all. Had to remove it and did an annual maintenance cleaning job on it :)

Yeah, I went to Wal-Mart and got a bottle of duster, and went at that heatsink real good, I don't see why I couldn't reuse it with the Athlon, anyway, it was like 10 pounds of dust that came out the other side, I was like "HOLY CRAP!!!!! MUSHROOM CLOUD!!!!" :popcorn:

[nickburns]

I just started a new PI project, using an new algorithm that was discovered about 10 years ago. It will actually compute the n-th digit of PI without having the (n-1)th digit. So you could just calculate the 1,234,567,899 digit of PI then compute the 1000 (or whatever digit you wanted).

Either way everyone can download a client software and it will ask my server what digit to compute and then return the result to the server. Then I can tape them all together and have millions and hopefully billions of digits of PI.

Stay tuned for news.

[mips]

I just started a new PI project, using an new algorithm that was discovered about 10 years ago. It will actually compute the n-th digit of PI without having the (n-1)th digit. So you could just calculate the 1,234,567,899 digit of PI then compute the 1000 (or whatever digit you wanted).

Either way everyone can download a client software and it will ask my server what digit to compute and then return the result to the server. Then I can tape them all together and have millions and hopefully billions of digits of PI.

Stay tuned for news.

Are you bored ?

[macogw]

PS. The best part is that after two and a half years I'm still using the
original AMD cooler!

Er..so what? The only time I've had to replace a heatsink (which I assume is what you mean by "cooler") is on a 5 year old computer. The 9 year old computer still has the original heatsink. Two and a half years is nothing. That's practically a new computer.