Sinking boards
I've finally upgraded my motherboard. After about six months of battling to get the Gigabyte p.o.s. to work properly, taking it in four times to two different shops, reinstalling windows three times, and still having crash issues, I've had enough. And this time it's genuine Intel boards all the way...
The complication came in transferring the CPU, though. My current 3.4Ghz dual-core is a splendid chip, and I have no need to upgrade that any time soon, but I did need to transfer it to the new board... and its accompanying heat sink. In the past, the two would have been sealed together with a thin layer of thermal paste for better heat conductivity, and the paste would be readily available anywhere. Over the past couple years, though, Intel and AMD have started shipping their chips with a piece of thermal tape already attached to the heat sink, so the assembly is easier - provided that you never have to break that seal, because over time the tape will harden, and when you separate the two you'll never re-align them again properly. So to move the chip, you need to strip off the tape with meths, and then use paste to re-connect them. This is a fairly intricate and exact procedure, so naturally I went round to Shaun's house and got him to help... :)
Given that I would need precisely one drop of the stuff, I was far more keen on finding someone who already had a tube of paste, rather than buying some. So I SMS'ed Bruce, to see if he had any lying around. He didn't, but the resulting conversation was kinda disturbing... :)
- - - - -
Me:
Dude, do you have any thermal paste at home? No, it's not for anything kinky...
Bruce:
You bought a Bill Gates blow-up doll?!?! :)
Me:
Bill AND Melinda... yeah, baby... :)
Bruce:
Just the 3 of you, getting all "thermal", huh?
Me:
Sink that heat, baby! Sink it!
Bruce:
Ok, I can't top that one. I bow to your superior doginess and ingenuity... for now :)
Me:
Yeah, that one kind grossed me out, too... :)
- - - - -
The good news is, the new board is MOST excellent...
The complication came in transferring the CPU, though. My current 3.4Ghz dual-core is a splendid chip, and I have no need to upgrade that any time soon, but I did need to transfer it to the new board... and its accompanying heat sink. In the past, the two would have been sealed together with a thin layer of thermal paste for better heat conductivity, and the paste would be readily available anywhere. Over the past couple years, though, Intel and AMD have started shipping their chips with a piece of thermal tape already attached to the heat sink, so the assembly is easier - provided that you never have to break that seal, because over time the tape will harden, and when you separate the two you'll never re-align them again properly. So to move the chip, you need to strip off the tape with meths, and then use paste to re-connect them. This is a fairly intricate and exact procedure, so naturally I went round to Shaun's house and got him to help... :)
Given that I would need precisely one drop of the stuff, I was far more keen on finding someone who already had a tube of paste, rather than buying some. So I SMS'ed Bruce, to see if he had any lying around. He didn't, but the resulting conversation was kinda disturbing... :)
- - - - -
Me:
Dude, do you have any thermal paste at home? No, it's not for anything kinky...
Bruce:
You bought a Bill Gates blow-up doll?!?! :)
Me:
Bill AND Melinda... yeah, baby... :)
Bruce:
Just the 3 of you, getting all "thermal", huh?
Me:
Sink that heat, baby! Sink it!
Bruce:
Ok, I can't top that one. I bow to your superior doginess and ingenuity... for now :)
Me:
Yeah, that one kind grossed me out, too... :)
- - - - -
The good news is, the new board is MOST excellent...
posted by Sentinel at
11:49 AM
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