I think I just broke my cherry

And my first CPU.

I just put together a system for my grandson. I bought it second hand. It is an Iwill KK266 with a 1GHz TBirb and an SK6 with a delta 38 on it.

I couldn't stand the whine of the delta anymore. So I ran down to my local best buy to pick up a 60mm fan. The sales man told me they didn't have any and then he actually told me to order it from NewEgg.com. But I am going offshore in about an hour and didn't want to wait. I put an 80mm fan on at a 45 degree angle. It was working fine then it started makeing a ticing noise. I opened up the side and saw that the fan was sometimes striking the spring on the SK6 clip. I shut down the computer and attemped to adjust the fan clips while it was still attached. I heard a poping sound. Now when I start the computer up it will post and start loading windows but then sponateously reboots (was working rock solid for 4 days prior to this). It sometimes finishes loading windows and sometimes reboots at the splash screen.

I tried removing the HSF and reseating it. When i removed it I noticed that a very thin sliver of cpu core that was the length of the entire core was now stuck to the bottom of the HSF. Not a good sign.

Now sometimes it loads windows then reboots, sometimes it reboots while reloading windows, sometimes it gives me an error message that the boot sector is corupt or it tells me that a device failed to load. The baffleing thing is that I can get into the bios and play around in there for as long as I want.

I think the cpu is toast. So when I ask what you guys think I expect you to tell me it's toast. But I want to know if it is likely and why can I get into the bios?

Any ideas anyone?

Anyone know where I can get a cheap TBird chip?

It's quite possible that the only parts of the CPU which were damaged were ones that are used in windows/other modern operating systems. The BIOS is very limited; all it does is use a special emulation mode of the processor, emulating an 8086. Windows stresses the CPU much more.

Wait, speaking of stress, are your temps fine? Maybe your proc just gets too hot under windows. However, I doubt it. Most likely broken.

Cheap tbird? search on pricewatch.

yeah, you could also pick up a cheap duron or athlon in the forum classifieds.

Your setup is obviously not stable.
Always Prime95 Torture test whatever you have for 12 hours.
(You can still do whatever you want in the background.)

Thunderbirds: pricewatch.com & eBay.
Cheapest guaranteed Thoroughbred B is still
http://www.gameve.com/store/gameve_viewitem.asp?idproduct=267

Your story is an excellent example of why it's more than worth it to spend $5 extra on the

http://www.svc.com/thersk7socco.html

instead of the SK6+. Nice & not too loud 80x25mm fan will do with SK-7.

I'll have to disagree... my SK-6+ and 2.5k rpm 70mm fan do just fine at 2 gigs, thank you very much. Sure, it's not the best cooling ever, but then I only spent $10. (the fan came off an old cooler master heatsink)

The fan has worked perfectly well oriented diagonally for a couple of months now. Here's a pic of it:

http://www.casualis.com/img/fan.jpg

another one, in case you weren't sick of that one:

http://www.casualis.com/img/gf4.jpg

By the way, staz, try underclocking your proc to the lowest frequency possible and see what happens.

Staz said:

When i removed it I noticed that a very thin sliver of cpu core that was the length of the entire core was now stuck to the bottom of the HSF.

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