Two days ago, my main PC died. Yes, died. How did it die? I am sad to say it died because the processor overheated my socket. Yes, not a normal sort of failure mode, but nevertheless… The story goes like so: My main PC was overheating often, especially when doing processor intensive tasks like Unreal Tournament 2004 and CD ripping, etc. After some discussions on the Abit forums I determined I need to replace my stock Intel fansink with a Zalman one. So, I order it from Newegg and when it shows up, I remove the old Intel one and replace it with this one (using arctic silver 5 thermal interface material (TIM)). And the machine won’t post. Argh! I hate that! So, after removing the Zalman and replacing it multiple times and trying to make sure the CPU is set well into the socket, I realize that the problems I had with getting the socket to release was due to the fact that the socket cracked when I lifted the ZIF handle the first time… After some further experimentation, I came to the conclusion that my AI7 was dead.
The socket is cracked. So, after much soul searching, I went to Fry’s and bought a no-name 478ld ATX MB. To make a long story short, it works and works well. On top of that, the board has a purple solder resist, so it looks fairly cool.
That does indeed look pretty cool. Incidentially, the heatsink in Mom and Dad’s computer is that exact model. 🙂