[geeks] help - strange pc death

[Sandwich Maker]

" From: "Jonathan C. Patschke" <jp at celestrion.net>
" 
" On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Sandwich Maker wrote:
" 
" > so i pop the heatsink retaining clip and peek.  [it is]  but when i put
" > it back together, no joy - it acts like there isn't even a cpu plugged
" > in.  i didn't touch the chip though i did wrestle a bit with the
" > heatsink clip; it has a fair amount of tension and i didn't at first
" > swing the ps out of the way.  over all, this machine looks to be pretty
" > solidly engineered, so i'm astonished that i could've broken anything
" > that easily.  are socket 370 cpus known to be fragile?
" 
" Yep.  The reason for the heat-spreader on the later CPUs wasn't so much
" for better thermal contact as it was to prevent cracking or chipping the
" die.

this is, all things considered, good to hear.  thanks!

" Polish the top of the die as cleanly as you can get it and shine a
" flashlight at it from different angles to see if you've introduced a
" hairline fracture into the die.  I've killed a flip-chip Pentium 3 by
" inadvertently bouncing the corner of the heatsink against the die.
" 
" Luckily for you, all but the 1400MHz/512k Tualatin Pentium 3 parts are as
" cheap as sand these days.

from the notes, i'm not sure even the final bios version [which i
flashed some time before it died] supports tualatins, but it does
cover the GHz coppermines afaict and they're not too spendy either.
and 2 of the 6 s-specs are in the fc-pga2 thermal spreader pkg.

" I've even killed one of our parts at work with a poorly-adjusted heatsink.
" A combination of uneven pressure and poor thermal mating caused the part
" to crack right down the middle once it started to get warm.

this reminds me to pay attention and be careful, thorough, and
unhurried if/when i put the new cpu in.  now to find one!
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought