First post, by vutt
While I have been happily using my P3 sytem with dirt cheap 650E/100FSB P3 CPU overclocked at 866MHZ for some time I have been thinking about upgrading it. Abusing old hardware by running it hot doesn't feel right.
Step 1:
I stumbled upon cheap 9€ genuine 866Mhz/133FSB offering on ebay. Near top CPU upgrades on any given platform are usually pricey. So it felt too good to be true. So I pulled the trigger because inside EU shipping was also acceptable. It came without heatsink, but very well packaged with conductive foam. WOW.
I bolted literally it on I think it's actually HP server heatsink. I was hoping to run it cooler than my 650E but it didn't. Same upper 55+ C (Case is cooled only by ATX PSU ) Might be something to do with silicon lottery...
Step 2:
Some half year later I made another move because of interesting heatsink design. Little Mhz bump as well as you can see on the picture below.
Of course thermal paste wasnt any more paste. It was yellow an hard as rock. like on this pic Even worse it didn't want to come off...
Q: How do you guys usually remove it?
None of my contact cleaners / Isopropyl alcohol helped me. Ultimately I took old credit card and slowly started to shave it off. It took ages to get it off from CPU. However from sink I gave up caution and went in with metal sponge.
Ok long story short my new genuine 933Mhz/133FSB is running about 5 degrees cooler under full load. Might be something to do with heatsink design. Then again new one is actually 40g lighter.
Another plus with new heatsink is that it fit neatly into standard slot 1 plastic brackets. I only had to remove one small plastic hook at the top. Also that slide in "Backplate" heatsink holder is miles better design than your typical consumer level thin plastic push in H frame.
I was thinking about home brwe DYI wire based custom bracket design for fan. However by end of the day settled on rather brutal, but effective self tapping screws solution. It doesn't have t be pretty but functional. Perfectly in line with 1999/2000 approach 😀