Brown stain around core=kentucky fried athlon?

[fuzzba11]

Yesterday I noticed a 'stain' on the middle of my chip, just above and attatched to the core, the ceramic is a bit darker in an uneven stain extending about a millimeter or two above. Wish I could take a pic, but does this mean that my core is likely fried? Also, if your thermal paste scorches, or turns black in little spots, that's a likely contender, too, right? I can't test it out right now since I have no mb...

[VecchK]

When I got my 1.2 it had no marks like that but when I removed the heatsink, after running it, to close the L1 bridges it had those marks. I think it gets them after you run it the first time and they are normal. My 1.2 works fine. I just got a 1.4 AYHJA Y in the mail on Thursday and it already had those marks. Maybe they pretested it? I dunno. I'm waiting for my MC462A before firing up the 1.4.

In any case, your t-bird should be fine. :)

[mrpcman]

my 900 was nice and brown after i fried it.