MattRocks wrote on Today, 13:30:

My first PC was a Pentium 200 MMX and it was assembled for me without any thermal paste. I didn't know. […]
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DaveDDS wrote on Today, 08:31:

nali wrote on Today, 06:37:

... It seems almost nobody knew thermal paste yet ...
At least in the computers world.

That is really weird - I've been working in the computing industry for almost 50 years (since 1978) - lots of various types of hardware/processors - lots of PC hardware and *many* other types before and after the PC - I've seen/used LOTS of thermal paste over the years (since the beginning) ...

If you are using a computing shop that doesn't know what thermal paste is - might want to look for another shop!

My first PC was a Pentium 200 MMX and it was assembled for me without any thermal paste. I didn't know.

I replaced the CPU and cooler at the same time - I don't know what the cooler was but it had a pad built into it. I remember pressing my thumb nail into it and leaving a mark, then realising I wasn't supposed to have done that.

Only after that I read about overclocking and thermal paste. The magazine was not commenting on stock clocks, so it was implied that thermal paste was necessary for overclocking.

So I bought some thermal paste. I then disassembled and reassembled, with a surprise: That pad had behaved like a soft metal (maybe lead?) and when the CPU got hot the metal melted and stuck to the CPU. When it cooled solid and hard to detach. The thumb nail cut had melted out.

That strange cooler worked really well, mechanically and thermally - the paste never did match that. I spent years looking for coolers like it and never found one again.

Yes it was also my observation that thermal paste was very little known in the world of PCs until it became somewhat essential at the turn of the millennium. It was kinda "breaking out" in late 98 into 99 for overclocking celerons, but those of us who had a clue from electronics hobbies were using it as soon as CPUs needed heatsinks.

However that didn't mean your HSF from the Pentium era always didn't have a TIM of some sort, they came with the rubbery pad stuck on, or they had that metal which is an Indium thermal pad, sometimes an Indium/Gallium alloy, but usually known as indium thermal pads, you can find them if you search. The pre-installed TIM was more of a thing with MMX class upwards, rather than when P54 classics were top end.

My CPUs from DX2 up first saw RS Components white thermal paste, but I only scrounged up the dregs of a tube, and by the time I was onto Pentium class it was Tandy/RadioShack white paste. Otherwise I guess I would be still using RS components tube if I got it new, because they came in the size of a small toothpaste back then, none of these little 3g tubes or syringes like the buddy who did that GPU regarded as single serve, but you should be getting more like 10 applications out of.

Something I knew from the start and has been hard to drum into people, thermal paste has absolutely terrible thermal conductivity... but it's miles better than air. You only want to replace the air gap, not float a heatsink on it. But this is also why some people say a particular paste is awesome, and some say it's terrible. The ones that just squish out of the way work fine for n00bs and large contact areas, whereas the ones which are pastier pastes may often work better in small contact areas, if sparingly applied.

I remember it being a bit amusing to me when the hardware and overclocking pages "discovered" thermal grease in 98ish, I was just trying to find some pages on archive dot org, but they are just out of range for good capture, or had server side scripted pages that didn't preserve. So will be a bit in that memory hole between post 2000 when most web got captured and when everyone faded out of newsgroups towards web BBS and messageboards. Though I did see a slight clue, that the "cyrix mailing list" was big into pastes early, so if an archive for that exists one might see the process of PC enthusiasts "catching on" to thermal pastes back in the day. Not sure if there might be something on Tom's Hardware still in archives, but that got to be a PITA to navigate.

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 15:07:

Yes it was also my observation that thermal paste was very little known in the world of PCs until it became somewhat essential a […]
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MattRocks wrote on Today, 13:30:

My first PC was a Pentium 200 MMX and it was assembled for me without any thermal paste. I didn't know. […]
Show full quote

DaveDDS wrote on Today, 08:31:

That is really weird - I've been working in the computing industry for almost 50 years (since 1978) - lots of various types of hardware/processors - lots of PC hardware and *many* other types before and after the PC - I've seen/used LOTS of thermal paste over the years (since the beginning) ...

If you are using a computing shop that doesn't know what thermal paste is - might want to look for another shop!

My first PC was a Pentium 200 MMX and it was assembled for me without any thermal paste. I didn't know.

I replaced the CPU and cooler at the same time - I don't know what the cooler was but it had a pad built into it. I remember pressing my thumb nail into it and leaving a mark, then realising I wasn't supposed to have done that.

Only after that I read about overclocking and thermal paste. The magazine was not commenting on stock clocks, so it was implied that thermal paste was necessary for overclocking.

So I bought some thermal paste. I then disassembled and reassembled, with a surprise: That pad had behaved like a soft metal (maybe lead?) and when the CPU got hot the metal melted and stuck to the CPU. When it cooled solid and hard to detach. The thumb nail cut had melted out.

That strange cooler worked really well, mechanically and thermally - the paste never did match that. I spent years looking for coolers like it and never found one again.

Yes it was also my observation that thermal paste was very little known in the world of PCs until it became somewhat essential at the turn of the millennium. It was kinda "breaking out" in late 98 into 99 for overclocking celerons, but those of us who had a clue from electronics hobbies were using it as soon as CPUs needed heatsinks.

However that didn't mean your HSF from the Pentium era always didn't have a TIM of some sort, they came with the rubbery pad stuck on, or they had that metal which is an Indium thermal pad, sometimes an Indium/Gallium alloy, but usually known as indium thermal pads, you can find them if you search. The pre-installed TIM was more of a thing with MMX class upwards, rather than when P54 classics were top end.

My CPUs from DX2 up first saw RS Components white thermal paste, but I only scrounged up the dregs of a tube, and by the time I was onto Pentium class it was Tandy/RadioShack white paste. Otherwise I guess I would be still using RS components tube if I got it new, because they came in the size of a small toothpaste back then, none of these little 3g tubes or syringes like the buddy who did that GPU regarded as single serve, but you should be getting more like 10 applications out of.

Something I knew from the start and has been hard to drum into people, thermal paste has absolutely terrible thermal conductivity... but it's miles better than air. You only want to replace the air gap, not float a heatsink on it. But this is also why some people say a particular paste is awesome, and some say it's terrible. The ones that just squish out of the way work fine for n00bs and large contact areas, whereas the ones which are pastier pastes may often work better in small contact areas, if sparingly applied.

I remember it being a bit amusing to me when the hardware and overclocking pages "discovered" thermal grease in 98ish, I was just trying to find some pages on archive dot org, but they are just out of range for good capture, or had server side scripted pages that didn't preserve. So will be a bit in that memory hole between post 2000 when most web got captured and when everyone faded out of newsgroups towards web BBS and messageboards. Though I did see a slight clue, that the "cyrix mailing list" was big into pastes early, so if an archive for that exists one might see the process of PC enthusiasts "catching on" to thermal pastes back in the day. Not sure if there might be something on Tom's Hardware still in archives, but that got to be a PITA to navigate.

The whole point of thermal paste was to fill microscopic imperfections in the metal surface (on heatsink, and on CPU).

So why did the CPU makers put great big markings on top of their CPUs? Intel had engraved specifications, others had painted logos, and even if they anodised the surface - that surface would then be thicker than un-anodised surfaces.

But to prove thermal paste really was optional, I remember a magazine article where a guy ranked CPUs by how fast they fried an egg in his pan 😁

Got a working floppy drive through an Adaptec EISA SCSI controller!

Bit of a chicken and the egg story. One has to configure the EISA board and cards first, so an ISA I/O with FDD is needed. Then the other FDD controller on the EISA card can be recognized by the system...

Couldn't get it to work on an Asus PCI/E-P54NP4 so I'm happy. 😀

MattRocks wrote on Today, 17:12:

The whole point of thermal paste was to fill microscopic imperfections in the metal surface (on heatsink, and on CPU). […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 15:07:

Yes it was also my observation that thermal paste was very little known in the world of PCs until it became somewhat essential a […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Today, 13:30:

My first PC was a Pentium 200 MMX and it was assembled for me without any thermal paste. I didn't know. […]
Show full quote

My first PC was a Pentium 200 MMX and it was assembled for me without any thermal paste. I didn't know.

I replaced the CPU and cooler at the same time - I don't know what the cooler was but it had a pad built into it. I remember pressing my thumb nail into it and leaving a mark, then realising I wasn't supposed to have done that.

Only after that I read about overclocking and thermal paste. The magazine was not commenting on stock clocks, so it was implied that thermal paste was necessary for overclocking.

So I bought some thermal paste. I then disassembled and reassembled, with a surprise: That pad had behaved like a soft metal (maybe lead?) and when the CPU got hot the metal melted and stuck to the CPU. When it cooled solid and hard to detach. The thumb nail cut had melted out.

That strange cooler worked really well, mechanically and thermally - the paste never did match that. I spent years looking for coolers like it and never found one again.

Yes it was also my observation that thermal paste was very little known in the world of PCs until it became somewhat essential at the turn of the millennium. It was kinda "breaking out" in late 98 into 99 for overclocking celerons, but those of us who had a clue from electronics hobbies were using it as soon as CPUs needed heatsinks.

However that didn't mean your HSF from the Pentium era always didn't have a TIM of some sort, they came with the rubbery pad stuck on, or they had that metal which is an Indium thermal pad, sometimes an Indium/Gallium alloy, but usually known as indium thermal pads, you can find them if you search. The pre-installed TIM was more of a thing with MMX class upwards, rather than when P54 classics were top end.

My CPUs from DX2 up first saw RS Components white thermal paste, but I only scrounged up the dregs of a tube, and by the time I was onto Pentium class it was Tandy/RadioShack white paste. Otherwise I guess I would be still using RS components tube if I got it new, because they came in the size of a small toothpaste back then, none of these little 3g tubes or syringes like the buddy who did that GPU regarded as single serve, but you should be getting more like 10 applications out of.

Something I knew from the start and has been hard to drum into people, thermal paste has absolutely terrible thermal conductivity... but it's miles better than air. You only want to replace the air gap, not float a heatsink on it. But this is also why some people say a particular paste is awesome, and some say it's terrible. The ones that just squish out of the way work fine for n00bs and large contact areas, whereas the ones which are pastier pastes may often work better in small contact areas, if sparingly applied.

I remember it being a bit amusing to me when the hardware and overclocking pages "discovered" thermal grease in 98ish, I was just trying to find some pages on archive dot org, but they are just out of range for good capture, or had server side scripted pages that didn't preserve. So will be a bit in that memory hole between post 2000 when most web got captured and when everyone faded out of newsgroups towards web BBS and messageboards. Though I did see a slight clue, that the "cyrix mailing list" was big into pastes early, so if an archive for that exists one might see the process of PC enthusiasts "catching on" to thermal pastes back in the day. Not sure if there might be something on Tom's Hardware still in archives, but that got to be a PITA to navigate.

The whole point of thermal paste was to fill microscopic imperfections in the metal surface (on heatsink, and on CPU).

So why did the CPU makers put great big markings on top of their CPUs? Intel had engraved specifications, others had painted logos, and even if they anodised the surface - that surface would then be thicker than un-anodised surfaces.

But to prove thermal paste really was optional, I remember a magazine article where a guy ranked CPUs by how fast they fried an egg in his pan 😁

Yeah it was kinda stupid the way they did the stampings. What is in those craters and valleys or bridges between high points you see when you zoom into the surface is air though, which is why I said air. I got a real good interface on a Cyrix PR-166 rated, 133 x2 clock and multi stock, by lapping the CPU and the heatsink, that one went to 2x83 and was very snappy in everything but quake.... took a K6-2-350 before it felt improved on in Win95.

edit: didn't put that particularly clearly, it ran at 133 with a 2x multiplier on a 66mhz bus as stock setting.

As the MOSFETS seem fine and the southbridge/VRM controller don's show any sign of shorts (by checking temperatures with the ATX power simply plugged in), I removed all the caps of my MSI KT7 Pro 2 which refuses to start despite having 3.3V on the PS_ON pins. Some of the capacitors show clear signe of bulges, and measuring them, they are indeed pretty dead.