Killed an XP - Problem with SK6 or Epox 8K7A

I just got a new XP 1500 today and prepared to swap it out with an older tbird in one of my Epox 8K7A's. I took the old cpu out and dropped in the new one with an even coat of arctic silver. I carefully put the Thermalright SK6 on making sure it was not touching the socket anywhere. I turned it on and immediately smelled smoke. I yanked the plug and removed the heatsink - chip fried and only a 1/4 of the surface had made contact with the heatsink as seen from the pattern of arctic silver on the heatsink. I was furious! I had carefully inspected the heatsink after mounting to make sure it cleared the raised edge of the socket - it did. So I started experimenting. I cleaned the heatsink, put some more arctic on the chip and tried mounting the hsf again. I did this four times, and not once did it ever make complete contact with the entire chip. I wiggled it, tried sliding it to either end, you name it I did it. Next I took the old rectangular shapped tbird and put it back in the socket. I cleaned everything and applied arctic to the old chip. I mounted the hsf as before, pulled it off and it had made perfect contact with the old tbird core. This happened to me about 2 months ago and I blamed it on myself for not making sure the hsf was properly mounted. Now that it has happened a second time and I investigated carefully I'm not happy! It looks like either the board and/or socket is bending with the new XP organic packaging material, or else the SK6 has some issues with the new shape of the core.

ewwww... Not good.

I haven't had any probs with my cheapo GlobalWin WBK38 making contact with an XP1600 on my Epox board. Maybe the AMD CPU forum will have some better info about this. Spread the word! You may save a lot of cpu cycle lives.

Also, even though it's a little too late, have you tried using a shim with the XP? It might level out the HSF. If it doesn't, then I might say that the core is not level on the chip.

Ouch sorry to hear that TC, always sad to see one go, so quick in the prime of their life

A moment of silence *bowing head*

J

I noticed this being a potential problem when I installed my 1900+ last week. The XP's are actaully lower than the T'birds. If you place the chips side by side you can see the difference, although I didn't think it would be a problem seeing as how most HS's are built. Can you try a different HS on the setup, and see if you still have the problem?
BTW sorry about the loss

killem1x1 said:

I noticed this being a potential problem when I installed my 1900+ last week. The XP's are actaully lower than the T'birds. If you place the chips side by side you can see the difference, although I didn't think it would be a problem seeing as how most HS's are built. Can you try a different HS on the setup, and see if you still have the problem?
BTW sorry about the loss

Click to expand...

I've got three new chips to try out, but only one different heatsink - a taisol. Strange thing is I installed an XP in another of my 8K7A's with the same SK6 heatsink a couple of months ago and it's fine. The only difference is I installed the heatsink with the board out of the case resting on cardboard. I sent this story to Joe and Ed, but they don't seem to care. I figured Joe might have something to say since he seems to be the heatsink guru, but no word from him yet.