7 ms·

Ouch, that poor die :( I remember it well, back in the very early 2000s, when my own Athlon XP 1800+ (an AGOIA stepping, I do know that for sure :D) met its un

by c0l0 26d ago

Ouch, that poor die :( I remember it well, back in the very early 2000s, when my own Athlon XP 1800+ (an AGOIA stepping, I do know that for sure :D) met its untimely end at the hands of a device that was designed to prevent the exact misfortune that killed its sister CPU as seen in this submission! The fragile silicon was a problem the enthusiast/PC-builder community was very aware of, and the market responded with "spacer" kits you could buy for a few $$$ that were cut from solid sheets of thin copper. These spacers would carefully wrap around all the little bumps on the CPU's upper side, and provide a level plane for the heatsink to rest upon, while still establishing direct contact with the die that it was supposed to cool down. So there was, in theory, decidedly less of a chance of killing your CPU by having the heatsink meet it in an unfortunate angle, or something to that effect. Unfortunately, the spacer that I had bought turned out to be just a wee little bit too thick, and, despite thermal paste (Arctic Silver!), the CPU did not in fact make contact with the heatsink (something shiny from Thermalright or Zalman, I think?) at all, which killed it instantly as soon as I powered up the rig for the first time. That's what it was like back in the days, when we got to school walking ten miles uphill (both ways) barefoot in deep snow. I had to put in some overtime at the small PC shop I worked after school back then, to afford a measly Duron 800 as its replacement. And still they keep claiming that time heals all wounds... ;)

Bluecobra 26d ago
I accidentally bent some of the pins on mine but I was able to carefully bend them back and luckily it booted. Computer building on those days was much more unfriendly. I remember hearing tons of horror stories of water cooling including leaks and the cpu overheating and dying that kept me far away from it until more recently.
- josephg 26d ago
  > Computer building on those days was much more unfriendly. Has it? CPUs ran much cooler back then. And gpus didn’t need brackets and special power cables and all that. Water cooling was harder. But also way less common or necessary.
  - NikolaNovak 26d ago
    I think yes - everything was just more breakable. It feels today's heatsink, CPUs, motherboards, can handle the load and installation they're designed for (rtx 5xxx power connectors notwithstanding). I started building PCs in early 1990s and it was also just easy fun. Early 2000s were this weird time where even doing mainstream things you were absolutely supposed to, such as installing HSF on a CPU, was ridiculously perilous. Mobos and cases also seem better designed these days. Yes some components need more stuff than before but it all seems to plug in and slot and wrap and screw in nicely if you're patient and methodical. Heck even the cases themselves are somewhat less likely to slot your wrists :). I feel ~2003 or so was the cusp when I started seeing less builds that were just maddeningly messy and sharp and hyper loud and crazy, and started getting more predictable and sane and workable. All anecdotal and based on personal perception of course :)
    - threetonesun 26d ago
      I vaguely remember some builds where setting the DIP switches wrong came with large all-caps text about how it would kill the CPU. Also some Pentium 2 CPUs with cooling shrouds that required duct work the rivaled my house's central HVAC. And yes I remember memory slots on the motherboard that needed to be feathering in or something would snap, and anti-static gloves being critical. These days I slap the CPU to the motherboard and a giant heatsink with two huge fans and call it a day.
    - josephg 26d ago
      > even the cases themselves are somewhat less likely to slot your wrists Fair. I have a scar on the knuckle of my index finger from breaking off the cover on a 5 1/4” drive bay. I was trying to push it out and it suddenly gave. My finger slammed into sharp tin and cut deep. I’m glad they don’t make them like that anymore.
  - Aurornis 26d ago
    > Has it? CPUs ran much cooler back then. CPUs now throttle to keep their temp in check. Back then, if the temp got too high they’d be permanently damaged like in the example above. > Water cooling was harder. But also way less common or necessary. Water cooling isn’t necessary today, either. The heat pipe heatsinks we have available are so good that you can cool every consumer CPU with a good air cooler. The automatic throttling means it won’t be a disaster if the temp gets high. Water cooling might get a few 100 more MHz during sustained all core workloads but it’s not necessary.
- DrPhish 26d ago
  >Computer building on those days was much more unfriendly Anyone who heard “black-to-black, back-to-back” just a little too late would agree with you (and probably has mild PTSD) PC building has become MUCH safer over the decades
NikolaNovak 26d ago
Yup, I killed an Athlon XP in a ridiculously (over-)expensive Voodoo Gaming computer in a similar fashion while updating the HSF, as careful as I was. I've been nervous and anxious every time I update a chip or hear sink ever since even though it's a MUCH quieter affair nowadays... Speaking of uphill every way, I also remember upgrading to a Alpha PAL screaming 6500rpm++ CPU fan+heatsink that sounded like a mix of jet engine or broken vacuum cleaner. Ridiculously loud - this was a few months before we as a society figured out that larger fans spinning more slowly were all around better for everyone :). I think it was something tiny like 60mm diameter industrial fan.
- userbinator 26d ago
  1 or 2RU servers and other rackmount equipment still uses deafeningly loud small fans (10k+ RPM) because there's no space for anything bigger.
- c0l0 26d ago
  Heh, one of my most prized posessions in my teens was a GlobalWin FOP38 with that PAL6035 you mentioned mounted. An absolutely CRAZY fan that had no objective right to exist, much less in a teenager's Socket A Celeron rig. I remember the day it arrived in the mail and I installed it - my family had just recently moved into a new house where my own room was located directly above the living room. When I started my PC with the new cooler and fan for the first time, the noise (esp. the obscene vibrations through the floor/ceiling!) actually prompted my mother to visit and check what's up/wrong :D I ended up rigging together two chopping boards and a few pristine cleaning sponges as a kind of pedestal for my big tower case to rest upon, and was allowed to operate that way for the months to come. If it weren't for the over-ear headphones I wore all day back then, I guess I would have had suffered hearing loss from the noise exposure rather sooner than later...
- g-b-r 26d ago
  I had a "small" Mini Super Orb on my thunderbird, more reasonable then the original Super Orb, and yet my neighbors of the floor above came to complain about my computer's noise Somehow I managed to sleep with it on though xd Mounting and dismounting it was very scary, and seeing it hang vertically with the cpu attached made me have cold sweats every time O _ o
userbinator 26d ago
which killed it instantly as soon as I powered up the rig for the first time For those who haven't seen this infamous video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0VuRG7MN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0VuRG7MN4 At the time, Intel had on-die thermal sensors and automatic throttling while AMD didn't.
bestham 23d ago
I had a friend whose Athlon Thunderbird was crushed under the heatsink, but everything seemed worked apart from playing MPEG clips under Windows. I guess that some part of the acceleration for full monitor video or MPEG decoding used a component in that portion of the chip (3D Now! ?).

by c0l0 26d ago

Bluecobra 26d ago

I accidentally bent some of the pins on mine but I was able to carefully bend them back and luckily it booted. Computer building on those days was much more unfriendly. I remember hearing tons of horror stories of water cooling including leaks and the cpu overheating and dying that kept me far away from it until more recently.

josephg 26d ago
> Computer building on those days was much more unfriendly. Has it? CPUs ran much cooler back then. And gpus didn’t need brackets and special power cables and all that. Water cooling was harder. But also way less common or necessary.
- NikolaNovak 26d ago
  I think yes - everything was just more breakable. It feels today's heatsink, CPUs, motherboards, can handle the load and installation they're designed for (rtx 5xxx power connectors notwithstanding). I started building PCs in early 1990s and it was also just easy fun. Early 2000s were this weird time where even doing mainstream things you were absolutely supposed to, such as installing HSF on a CPU, was ridiculously perilous. Mobos and cases also seem better designed these days. Yes some components need more stuff than before but it all seems to plug in and slot and wrap and screw in nicely if you're patient and methodical. Heck even the cases themselves are somewhat less likely to slot your wrists :). I feel ~2003 or so was the cusp when I started seeing less builds that were just maddeningly messy and sharp and hyper loud and crazy, and started getting more predictable and sane and workable. All anecdotal and based on personal perception of course :)
  - threetonesun 26d ago
    I vaguely remember some builds where setting the DIP switches wrong came with large all-caps text about how it would kill the CPU. Also some Pentium 2 CPUs with cooling shrouds that required duct work the rivaled my house's central HVAC. And yes I remember memory slots on the motherboard that needed to be feathering in or something would snap, and anti-static gloves being critical. These days I slap the CPU to the motherboard and a giant heatsink with two huge fans and call it a day.
  - josephg 26d ago
    > even the cases themselves are somewhat less likely to slot your wrists Fair. I have a scar on the knuckle of my index finger from breaking off the cover on a 5 1/4” drive bay. I was trying to push it out and it suddenly gave. My finger slammed into sharp tin and cut deep. I’m glad they don’t make them like that anymore.
- Aurornis 26d ago
  > Has it? CPUs ran much cooler back then. CPUs now throttle to keep their temp in check. Back then, if the temp got too high they’d be permanently damaged like in the example above. > Water cooling was harder. But also way less common or necessary. Water cooling isn’t necessary today, either. The heat pipe heatsinks we have available are so good that you can cool every consumer CPU with a good air cooler. The automatic throttling means it won’t be a disaster if the temp gets high. Water cooling might get a few 100 more MHz during sustained all core workloads but it’s not necessary.
DrPhish 26d ago
>Computer building on those days was much more unfriendly Anyone who heard “black-to-black, back-to-back” just a little too late would agree with you (and probably has mild PTSD) PC building has become MUCH safer over the decades

NikolaNovak 26d ago

Yup, I killed an Athlon XP in a ridiculously (over-)expensive Voodoo Gaming computer in a similar fashion while updating the HSF, as careful as I was. I've been nervous and anxious every time I update a chip or hear sink ever since even though it's a MUCH quieter affair nowadays... Speaking of uphill every way, I also remember upgrading to a Alpha PAL screaming 6500rpm++ CPU fan+heatsink that sounded like a mix of jet engine or broken vacuum cleaner. Ridiculously loud - this was a few months before we as a society figured out that larger fans spinning more slowly were all around better for everyone :). I think it was something tiny like 60mm diameter industrial fan.

userbinator 26d ago
1 or 2RU servers and other rackmount equipment still uses deafeningly loud small fans (10k+ RPM) because there's no space for anything bigger.
c0l0 26d ago
Heh, one of my most prized posessions in my teens was a GlobalWin FOP38 with that PAL6035 you mentioned mounted. An absolutely CRAZY fan that had no objective right to exist, much less in a teenager's Socket A Celeron rig. I remember the day it arrived in the mail and I installed it - my family had just recently moved into a new house where my own room was located directly above the living room. When I started my PC with the new cooler and fan for the first time, the noise (esp. the obscene vibrations through the floor/ceiling!) actually prompted my mother to visit and check what's up/wrong :D I ended up rigging together two chopping boards and a few pristine cleaning sponges as a kind of pedestal for my big tower case to rest upon, and was allowed to operate that way for the months to come. If it weren't for the over-ear headphones I wore all day back then, I guess I would have had suffered hearing loss from the noise exposure rather sooner than later...
g-b-r 26d ago
I had a "small" Mini Super Orb on my thunderbird, more reasonable then the original Super Orb, and yet my neighbors of the floor above came to complain about my computer's noise Somehow I managed to sleep with it on though xd Mounting and dismounting it was very scary, and seeing it hang vertically with the cpu attached made me have cold sweats every time O _ o

userbinator 26d ago

which killed it instantly as soon as I powered up the rig for the first time For those who haven't seen this infamous video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0VuRG7MN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0VuRG7MN4 At the time, Intel had on-die thermal sensors and automatic throttling while AMD didn't.

bestham 23d ago

I had a friend whose Athlon Thunderbird was crushed under the heatsink, but everything seemed worked apart from playing MPEG clips under Windows. I guess that some part of the acceleration for full monitor video or MPEG decoding used a component in that portion of the chip (3D Now! ?).