KefkaZ
08-09-01, 06:41 AM
Greetings!
First some background:
While the title of this thread uses the word newbie, be assured that it is a relative term. I've had my own system for many years, and am currently on the second generation of a computer a built myself. (Which is hellishly rewarding may I add.) I had no problems installing my first CPU a few years ago, which was a Celeron 466. It went in, it worked.
Here's my sad tale of woe:
After working about a month, I purchased a 1.2 ghz Thunderbird and an Abit Kt7a-133 mobo. The Thunderbird, with its "Chrome Orb" (which the lady on the phone assured me would work just fine) arrived in about 2 days. The Mobo took about 2 weeks. (which is another tale of woe.) Anywho, i was overjoyed to have my shiny new parts. I quickly went to the task of replacing my old parts with my new parts.
But then I hit a snag.
Three capacitors on the motherboard were too close to let my heatsink mount properly. Furthermore, it was designed to be installed one way.
First, I gently bent the capacitors back, and it still wouldn't fit. Then I put my whole weight on the heatsink to try and mount properly. Still wouldn't fit. Finally, i took the feet off of the processor, pressed with my weight, and it fit.
Well, two weeks later (sufficient time to let all of the warrenties expire) I realized that both motherboard and processor were damaged, enough to error beyond belief, but not enough to stop windows from running. (Is anyone surprised at this point.) Grand Total for the damaged parts, labor and replacement parts from a tech store: ~700$ US.
However, the tech ended up using my "fantastic" heatsink on the replacement motherboard and processor.
Thus, I am running a CPU temp of ~64 degrees C, with a mobo temp of about 16F above ambient. (I'm far too lazy at this point to convert my room temp to C)
The new system is relatively stable (I rarely get a BSD in 98SE.) I have no desire to overclock at this point either. (It seems like great fun, but i'm quite a bit spooked after this whole situation. Maybe in a few years.) Thus, I need to get a heatsink that will keep an athlon processor 1ghz. It MUST be super-ultra easy to install, and i'd like it to be reasonably quiet. Price isn't too much of a problem, but i'd like to pay under 40$. It needs to fit into an Asus A7V133 easily. Also, if anyone could point me at THE guide for installing this stuff, i'd be pretty happy.
Hopefully this thread will give the people who are just starting down this section of computing a wake-up and show them that you can never research enough.
First some background:
While the title of this thread uses the word newbie, be assured that it is a relative term. I've had my own system for many years, and am currently on the second generation of a computer a built myself. (Which is hellishly rewarding may I add.) I had no problems installing my first CPU a few years ago, which was a Celeron 466. It went in, it worked.
Here's my sad tale of woe:
After working about a month, I purchased a 1.2 ghz Thunderbird and an Abit Kt7a-133 mobo. The Thunderbird, with its "Chrome Orb" (which the lady on the phone assured me would work just fine) arrived in about 2 days. The Mobo took about 2 weeks. (which is another tale of woe.) Anywho, i was overjoyed to have my shiny new parts. I quickly went to the task of replacing my old parts with my new parts.
But then I hit a snag.
Three capacitors on the motherboard were too close to let my heatsink mount properly. Furthermore, it was designed to be installed one way.
First, I gently bent the capacitors back, and it still wouldn't fit. Then I put my whole weight on the heatsink to try and mount properly. Still wouldn't fit. Finally, i took the feet off of the processor, pressed with my weight, and it fit.
Well, two weeks later (sufficient time to let all of the warrenties expire) I realized that both motherboard and processor were damaged, enough to error beyond belief, but not enough to stop windows from running. (Is anyone surprised at this point.) Grand Total for the damaged parts, labor and replacement parts from a tech store: ~700$ US.
However, the tech ended up using my "fantastic" heatsink on the replacement motherboard and processor.
Thus, I am running a CPU temp of ~64 degrees C, with a mobo temp of about 16F above ambient. (I'm far too lazy at this point to convert my room temp to C)
The new system is relatively stable (I rarely get a BSD in 98SE.) I have no desire to overclock at this point either. (It seems like great fun, but i'm quite a bit spooked after this whole situation. Maybe in a few years.) Thus, I need to get a heatsink that will keep an athlon processor 1ghz. It MUST be super-ultra easy to install, and i'd like it to be reasonably quiet. Price isn't too much of a problem, but i'd like to pay under 40$. It needs to fit into an Asus A7V133 easily. Also, if anyone could point me at THE guide for installing this stuff, i'd be pretty happy.
Hopefully this thread will give the people who are just starting down this section of computing a wake-up and show them that you can never research enough.