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A little CPU story to overcome certain fears.

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snapshot-

New Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Hello,

I'm taking the initiative to thank you for welcoming me to the overclockers' community. As for my first post, you are going to read about one of my systems' adventures during the past 6 months. Let's get it on with!

There I am building one of my personal computers during late 2010. It was the year the new Fermi-based chip-set was announced by nVidia and came into the then brand new GTX 480. What a beast of a GPU, it stood as a legacy for the single-core cards out there being by far the fastest and most well-performing, even though it run loud and hot. Still rocking on heavily to be quite honest. Now, along with the 600-euros-worth card back then, I went with somewhat less expensive hardware but still my choices were not that bad - and I stand corrected by what happened during the last 6 months.

The motherboard of my choice was an ASUS Crosshair Formula IV by RoG, the CPU was a 6 core AMD branded Phenom II 1090T and my PSU a Thermaltake Toughpower 750W. 16GBs of Kingston HyperX memory running hot on 1866MHz and the whole setup (throw in a Samsung SSD) inside a Cooler Master HAF 932, case modded with some fancy heat-sinks and silent yet powerful (plus colorful) fans. The general experience using this system was breathtaking. Games flooded with tons of FPS, I never experienced anything but blissful gaming and multitasking. Up until 6 months ago that I decided to clean up the dust that conspired against it's health.

I removed everything carefully and cleaned the pieces. The moment to take the CPU's heat-sink arrived, and as I unlocked it and dragged it out, the idiots at my local shop that I trusted to put the pieces together, as I was working and had no time back then, applied way too much thermal paste resulting in it becoming as hard as cement thus the CPU was stuck underneath it and came off forcefully with the heat-sink. At first I didn't quite understand what happened and I was searching for a CPU on my motherboard. There was none.

That's the moment were I thought that it's over. There's no way the CPU survived the way it came out with the lever intact. Desperate enough to put everything back together in order to see if any damage was done, I faced an even greater problem - the CPU would not come off the heat-sink. I used alcohol (a whole lot of it) to remove the tons of thermal compound, I used heat, brute force, the CPU was not coming off. And wen I pulled the lever up in order to just place the CPU+Heat-Sink as one back into the motherboard, the lever would become an obstacle to the Heat-Sink so it couldn't go in. There was no way.

Or so thought I for a moment.

Filled with disappointment that led to anger, I brutally removed the lever, unlocked the socket with my hands, straightened some CPU pins I accidentally almost broke using a flat screwdriver and punched the thing I was holding on the socket the moment I managed to feel all of the pins in place. I then locked the Heat-Sink and hoped for the best, although I was 100% certain that part was done. Finished. Dead.

As you can probably guess since this is an expected plot twist right now, my system started up. The CPU was fully operational under excellent temperatures. Relieved, I was.

For six months it run non-stop, until yesterday. The computer just wouldn't start up. At all. And there was no led-lit indication on my motherboard as to what the problem might be. The readings I took on a multi-meter when I tested the 20+4pin ATX connector showed normal voltages plus the paper-clip jump start worked on the PSU thus I concluded that the CPU, since it went through a lot, was to blame. The capacitors on my motherboard all looked neat and that made me take a set of actions that I wouldn't under other circumstances.

Now I don't know why I did all that since I was convinced the CPU was the faulty piece of hardware, but I had a feeling, an instinct that itched, that something was off with electricity in that case despite the fact that my tests proved the PSU in good condition. So I first decided to try another PSU, but not before I did the following, for no obvious reason whatsoever:

Once again, I ripped the Heat-Sink and it's well-stuck-with buddy out of the AM3 socket, took another flat screwdriver and placed it next to the metallic side of the CPU. I then started hitting the screwdriver with a sledgehammer. The Phenom II took more than 10 hits in order to get off. The next step was, without thinking, to - for some reason - clean the thermal compound. I took the screwdriver and started ripping it off the CPU. Gently, but not gently enough - I didn't care what happened to it anymore. It was like peeling off color from some piece of metal. The Phenom was scratched pretty badly after the process, but it was now clean! And so was the Heat-Sink. I applied a random thermal compound I found inside my drawers after cleaning the CPU with some alcohol and put everything back in place, along with a new PSU unit.

And the system came to life. The PSU was the broken link. I am still amazed the CPU is running in, again, excellent condition under optimal temperatures, even lower than the past 4 years!

The quality of engineering plays a definitive role as to how hardware is going to act according to the way you treat it. But most importantly, if the way you treat it follows a logical path, it will most likely survive all blows. Because that CPU took 10 sledgehammer hits, but they were made to the point and at an angle I deemed the least dangerous for it to break. Because that CPU had the thermal compound cleaned with a screwdriver instead of Q-tips, but there was minimal and gentle contact between the two. Basic engineering knowledge can get you safely out of desperate paths, even if you're lost in them for good, in an angry mood, full of bitter disappointment.

Or am I just lucky?...
 
Basic engineering knowledge? ROFLMAO

You smashed a CPU/heatsink into the socket, broke the lever off... then you took the cpu off the motherboard again and took a hammer to it to get it off the heatsink...

There is never any need to remove the heatsink once it is on. Not after 1 year, not after 10 years. If you use a good quality thermal compound it will last a very long time.

You clean the heatsink while still connected to the motherboard. You never take the heatsink off. You also never force things. Pulling hard enough to break the lever on the socket? Hitting the CPU with a hammer and screwdriver? Basic engineering knowledge?

Sorry man, I just don't see it, honestly. All you needed was a new power supply. You damaged your motherboard for no reason because you were too rough with it and you could have damaged your CPU as well.

Be more gentle with things.
 
If a cpu is stuck to a heatsink you can hold both the cpu and heatsink with one hand and place a large tipped flathead screwdriver between the cpu and heatsink and give the screwdriver a tiny twist. This will free the cpu with almost no force or inertia to send the cpu flying. Since you hold the heatsink and edge of the cpu the pins aren't going to impact anything in any case. Sometimes a hair dryer will make the tim soft and that helps. I wouldn't put the blame on the pc shop. You have to very gingerly take heatsinks of cpu's and carefully remove cpu's from zif sockets. Common sense.
 
Run the PC for fifteen or twenty minutes with some kind of load (Prime95, intense video games, IBT, Linpack, etc) to warm up the CPU (and the paste that's on it). Then, shut it down and twist and turn the heatsink (after you loosen the mounting screws, brackets, etc) to get it off of the CPU without damage.

Don't just pull that heatsink straight off, that's how you break stuff.
 
Hello,

I'm taking the initiative to thank you for welcoming me to the overclockers' community. As for my first post, you are going to read about one of my systems' adventures during the past 6 months. Let's get it on with!

There I am building one of my personal computers during late 2010. It was the year the new Fermi-based chip-set was announced by nVidia and came into the then brand new GTX 480. What a beast of a GPU, it stood as a legacy for the single-core cards out there being by far the fastest and most well-performing, even though it run loud and hot. Still rocking on heavily to be quite honest. Now, along with the 600-euros-worth card back then, I went with somewhat less expensive hardware but still my choices were not that bad - and I stand corrected by what happened during the last 6 months.

The motherboard of my choice was an ASUS Crosshair Formula IV by RoG, the CPU was a 6 core AMD branded Phenom II 1090T and my PSU a Thermaltake Toughpower 750W. 16GBs of Kingston HyperX memory running hot on 1866MHz and the whole setup (throw in a Samsung SSD) inside a Cooler Master HAF 932, case modded with some fancy heat-sinks and silent yet powerful (plus colorful) fans. The general experience using this system was breathtaking. Games flooded with tons of FPS, I never experienced anything but blissful gaming and multitasking. Up until 6 months ago that I decided to clean up the dust that conspired against it's health.

I removed everything carefully and cleaned the pieces. The moment to take the CPU's heat-sink arrived, and as I unlocked it and dragged it out, the idiots at my local shop that I trusted to put the pieces together, as I was working and had no time back then, applied way too much thermal paste resulting in it becoming as hard as cement thus the CPU was stuck underneath it and came off forcefully with the heat-sink. At first I didn't quite understand what happened and I was searching for a CPU on my motherboard. There was none.

That's the moment were I thought that it's over. There's no way the CPU survived the way it came out with the lever intact. Desperate enough to put everything back together in order to see if any damage was done, I faced an even greater problem - the CPU would not come off the heat-sink. I used alcohol (a whole lot of it) to remove the tons of thermal compound, I used heat, brute force, the CPU was not coming off. And wen I pulled the lever up in order to just place the CPU+Heat-Sink as one back into the motherboard, the lever would become an obstacle to the Heat-Sink so it couldn't go in. There was no way.

Or so thought I for a moment.

Filled with disappointment that led to anger, I brutally removed the lever, unlocked the socket with my hands, straightened some CPU pins I accidentally almost broke using a flat screwdriver and punched the thing I was holding on the socket the moment I managed to feel all of the pins in place. I then locked the Heat-Sink and hoped for the best, although I was 100% certain that part was done. Finished. Dead.

As you can probably guess since this is an expected plot twist right now, my system started up. The CPU was fully operational under excellent temperatures. Relieved, I was.

For six months it run non-stop, until yesterday. The computer just wouldn't start up. At all. And there was no led-lit indication on my motherboard as to what the problem might be. The readings I took on a multi-meter when I tested the 20+4pin ATX connector showed normal voltages plus the paper-clip jump start worked on the PSU thus I concluded that the CPU, since it went through a lot, was to blame. The capacitors on my motherboard all looked neat and that made me take a set of actions that I wouldn't under other circumstances.

Now I don't know why I did all that since I was convinced the CPU was the faulty piece of hardware, but I had a feeling, an instinct that itched, that something was off with electricity in that case despite the fact that my tests proved the PSU in good condition. So I first decided to try another PSU, but not before I did the following, for no obvious reason whatsoever:

Once again, I ripped the Heat-Sink and it's well-stuck-with buddy out of the AM3 socket, took another flat screwdriver and placed it next to the metallic side of the CPU. I then started hitting the screwdriver with a sledgehammer. The Phenom II took more than 10 hits in order to get off. The next step was, without thinking, to - for some reason - clean the thermal compound. I took the screwdriver and started ripping it off the CPU. Gently, but not gently enough - I didn't care what happened to it anymore. It was like peeling off color from some piece of metal. The Phenom was scratched pretty badly after the process, but it was now clean! And so was the Heat-Sink. I applied a random thermal compound I found inside my drawers after cleaning the CPU with some alcohol and put everything back in place, along with a new PSU unit.

And the system came to life. The PSU was the broken link. I am still amazed the CPU is running in, again, excellent condition under optimal temperatures, even lower than the past 4 years!

The quality of engineering plays a definitive role as to how hardware is going to act according to the way you treat it. But most importantly, if the way you treat it follows a logical path, it will most likely survive all blows. Because that CPU took 10 sledgehammer hits, but they were made to the point and at an angle I deemed the least dangerous for it to break. Because that CPU had the thermal compound cleaned with a screwdriver instead of Q-tips, but there was minimal and gentle contact between the two. Basic engineering knowledge can get you safely out of desperate paths, even if you're lost in them for good, in an angry mood, full of bitter disappointment.

Or am I just lucky?...

This post still boggles my mind. Sorry for resurrecting it.........................
 
Well I wouldn't go that far... ;) :rofl:
Yeah, one tough cookie.

Jeeze, just mounting the cooler on my old Duron chipped the entire side of the core :-/

I think I told you before that at a layover in Philadelphia my wife went to get a pedicure and there was good old Les getting one. How is that for "being off the grid"? Lol! She had a beer with him and said he was a nice guy.
 
I think I told you before that at a layover in Philadelphia my wife went to get a pedicure and there was good old Les getting one. How is that for "being off the grid"? Lol! She had a beer with him and said he was a nice guy.

Maybe he chipped a toenail climbing boulders in the Yukon :rofl:
 
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