Scali wrote:

My Pentium board has a COAST module for L2 cache:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_on_a_stick

So that's what some of those Socket 7 boards with the Slot-1 knockoff connectors use. 🤣 I always was confused as to why it was there, because I knew they couldn't take Slot 1 CPU's, but this explains a lot.

Slot-1 is also an L2 cache module. They just added the CPU on there for convenience 😀

Scali wrote:

Slot-1 is also an L2 cache module. They just added the CPU on there for convenience 😀

I mean, technically, you could say that. What about when it gets to the Coppermines?

I've went ahead and put a little dab (BB size or so) right where the die would be, and pushed it down. Seeing as ~75% of the CPU seems to be glorified wires, I think putting some on the die to allow it to interface with the heatsink properly should be just fine.

I will be starting a new thread discussing further steps with this machine, thanks for all the help, and I apologize if I ever got snappy earlier.

realistically the paste is there really to bond the 2 surfaces and fill the gaps as perfect as possible. So it doesn't matter how thin it is. It is about transferring the heat as most efficiently from the cpu to the heatsink. It is probably nice to have as much area covered by smudging the paste with the heatsink which also helps to fill the gaps but having a dab and squashing it with the heatsink will still transfer the heat to the heatsink. The heatsink cools the cpu so as long as there is a pathway to suck the heat off the cpu in a efficient way that is most important. Don't bother measuring heatsink temperature measure the actual cpu temp thats what matters

athlon-power wrote:

Scali wrote:

My Pentium board has a COAST module for L2 cache:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_on_a_stick

So that's what some of those Socket 7 boards with the Slot-1 knockoff connectors use. 🤣 I always was confused as to why it was there, because I knew they couldn't take Slot 1 CPU's, but this explains a lot.

In fact COAST and Slot 1 aren't that similar:

mpe wrote:

In fact COAST and Slot 1 aren't that similar: […]
Show full quote

In fact COAST and Slot 1 aren't that similar:

It's hard to tell in pictures of the motherboards, but COAST is a fair bit smaller than Slot 1. That was more of a joke than anything else, though it is interesting to learn more about the mysterious slot beside the CPU socket on some motherboards.

athlon-power wrote:

Sorry I vanished for a bit. Thought I overreacted to me being wrong, but I guess I didn't, anyways, I wanted to take some space for a bit in case I had overreacted.

Huh? If you turned over a table or something, I didn't notice.

athlon-power wrote:

(why didn't they keep this ability in modern cases?)

Same reason they aren't built to hold CRTs, or strong enough to lean on without denting anymore. 🤑 🤑 🤑 Nobody wants to pay a dime over $30 for a case nowadays, with PSU and fans and USB 3.0 ports, please.

athlon-power wrote:

I also hate this little thing because it puts far too low a pressure on the CPU.

If the HS gets warm, it's fine. You need enough pressure to get thermal conductivity, no need to bend the motherboard. 😉 This isn't the generation of CPUs that would let out its magic smoke if the fan stopped spinning for 10 seconds.

It's not that I turned over a table, but because I thought I was so sure that I was right, when I cross-referenced it and found out I was wrong, it confused me because Intel themselves were claiming those cache numbers. "You're right, what the Hell?" wasn't the best way to put it because that could've been taken as "How could you be right?" when I really meant "What the Hell is Intel doing with those sheets?" I just wasn't thinking as clearly as I should've been, and when I got to thinking about it I realized that it could be taken that way, so I gave it a couple of days and came back to see if it was taken that way, and it doesn't appear to be that way, but I still wanted to be safe and apologize.

As far as cases go, it sucks, but I do understand why somewhat. I already have a case for my next build, it doesn't look great, but it's decently solid, has cable management room, USB 3.0 ports, and tons of fan mounts. Got it by trading a 16GB kit of 2x8GB DDR4 2666 modules that I had no use for.

I already have a huge Socket 370 Thermaltake cooler that I've cleaned up and am going to use to reduce the noise made by that god-awful whiney little CPU fan that's in it right now. Hopefully, it'll still cool okay and won't sound horrible.

i don't use thermal paste on my Pentium 100 MHz, just a Super 7/S370 heatsink with a fan. it runs pretty cool.

Windows9566 wrote:

i don't use thermal paste on my Pentium 100 MHz, just a Super 7/S370 heatsink with a fan. it runs pretty cool.

Got the OG fan working, the Thermaltake cooler's fan was done for.

Maximum TDP of your CPU is ~11 watts, whereas the maximum TDP of my CPU is ~18 watts, at stock speeds. I certainly feel better with some MX4 on there, even if it's only a little bit directly over the die.

athlon-power wrote:

That's what I did earlier before I made this post, actually, but I felt like it wasn't enough. The surface area of that CPU has to be as big as it is for some reason, and I suspect that having a dot in the center, even when it spreads out, could possibly leave things like the CPU's cache out of bridged contact with the heatsink.

Even high powered CPUs (excluding ones like TR with massive heat spreaders) don't require any exotic thermal paste application method. Only when paste is grossly under applied will temps be way out of line. Even over application won't be a thermal issue as the excess generally squeezes out onto the socket area (which can cause other problems, so please no CPU bukkake).

In your case, a small dot in the middle should be fine for any P55c whether it's a FCPGA or die side up version.

Well... The common rule are, that if the CPU is a ceramic one, then you do not need any thermal grease. Just a stock cooler, with or without a fan, depending on what CPU we are talking about. With a metal top heat spreader, then you can use thermal paste if you like. The reason for this, is that you will have a heck of a time, getting thermal grease off a creamic surface. Regarding the amount of thermal paste, then you must look at what kind of job it is supposed to be doing. Why is it even there? Well... The function of thermal paste, is to fill out any scratches and gaps on both CPU and Heatsink, in order to be able to transfer heat in the most effective way possible. Basically translates to there is no need for more than a thin layer. Anything more does not give better result. It is only there, to fill out gaps and scratches and uneven surface.