{"id":306,"date":"2006-09-28T10:57:11","date_gmt":"2006-09-27T23:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2006\/09\/28\/mobofo\/"},"modified":"2008-01-10T19:46:33","modified_gmt":"2008-01-10T09:46:33","slug":"mobofo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2006\/09\/28\/mobofo\/","title":{"rendered":"MoBoFo"},"content":{"rendered":"

If my machine runs slowly, the CPU isn’t normally the bottleneck. I haven’t been doing much computationally intensive stuff recently. The last time I upgraded my CPU, it pretty much only meant that my infinite loops have run faster, and the perceived speed of my hard-drive has been slower.<\/p>\n

However, over the past month, every time I have done anything computationally interesting, my PC speaker has beeped a persistent warning. Apparently “temperature sensor #3” has been getting up around 75°C. When I have brought the CPU usage back down, it has cooled off, and the beeping has stopped.<\/p>\n

I ignored it for a while. However, this week, a rogue copy of Firefox decided that it needed upgrading so badly, that it consumed 80% CPU and caused my machine to start beeping during the middle of the night, waking me. Last weekend I decided it was time for action.<\/p>\n

\n

I rev up the machine, and poked my fingers in its innards. System fan is spinning happily. CPU fan is working fine. Doesn’t seem too hot. Ooh! The video-card’s heatsink is very hot – and, oh my, the video-card’s fan doesn’t seem to be turning.<\/p>\n

I shut-down the machine, and replaced the video card with an old spare. The old fan does seem to have seized up – it’s hard to turn by hand. I’ve fixed it!<\/p>\n

I re-start the machine and launch a game. Drats! Soon the machine is back to its beeping (and the game is running very slow on the old video-card!) I play for a few more minutes until I can handle the beeping no more, and start to quit. The motherboard can’t wait, and simply cuts the power – the screen goes black.<\/p>\n

Okay, so it wasn’t the video-card. Maybe the problem is the CPU is getting hot, but isn’t conveying its heat to the heatsink. The thermal paste may not be making good contact.<\/p>\n

The CPU fan is clipped into the heatsink and to the motherboard. I remove the clips to the motherboard, and remove the heatsink and fan. As I lift away the heatsink, I find – to my horror – that the CPU is cemented onto the heatsink with dried-up thermal paste. I have just plucked the CPU straight out of the ZIF socket without releasing it first. I’ve bent pins and generally treated it pretty badly. Looks like I’ve just destroyed a CPU – and possibly another motherboard<\/a> too.<\/p>\n

Not really wanting to buy a new fridge<\/a>, and with nothing to lose, I continue the abuse. I separate the CPU from the heatsink with a screwdriver for leverage. I bend the pins back straight with my fat fingers and with no ESD precautions. I insert it back into its socket – somewhat gently. I don’t have any new thermal paste, so I just rest the heatsink on top of the CPU, separated by a couple of crusty layers of dried thermal paste. I clean up some of the dust that has embedded itself in the heatsink and plonk on the the CPU fan and clip it in place.<\/p>\n

Now, I watch with interest to see what happens when I try to boot up this damaged PC.<\/p>\n

To a shout of joy, it still works! <\/p>\n

In fact, it’s better! It is now cruises around 35-45°C, even in a warm room on a hot day, running games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently my CPU has been getting up around 75\u00c2\u00b0C. <\/p>\n

I ignored it for a while. However, last weekend I decided it was time for action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,28,35,41],"tags":[226],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-based-on-a-true-story","category-doubleplus-geek","category-heroic-failures","category-story-telling","tag-computer-parts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}