Should I upgrade my socket 939 CPU?

[MrNovi]

There are some good suggestions for straightening pins in this thread.

If the TIMl residue is more of a liquid/paste consistency use 90% Isopropyl Alcohol (not rubbing alcohol that has glycerin in it). If it's fairly solid (like a melted pad) or just plain stubborn then heat it up with a hair dryer to soften it up then follow uddarts' suggestions. As he said, Paper Napkins or Paper Towels work well.

Don

[TheGlasMan]

Shame about that. Yes check the tread, and just clean off the old compound (ArcticSilver or a copy). As said Isoprpyl is the way. Drug and supermarkets have 91%, which I prefer.

[supercat]

a few of the pins are bent! Oh, and the heatsink still has some remnants of thermal compound on it.

Well that just sucks, why take a pic of a proper cover if he did not ship with it ? I do not like to leave neg feedback, contact him and see what he says. Second, the bent pins are fairly easy to straighten out, just be very careful to avoid static. Straighten, try in socket. Rinse, repeat. Keep trying till it goes. You are right, it could have happened in shipping. That is why this seller looked good because he had a picture of a plastic cover, if he had used that then no pens would have been bent. Ask for partial refund because the picture was misleading, time is money.

The thermal compound is cake, do like the others have said. Very common, and you should always clean before using fresh thermal compound.

Ask for partial refund, and if nothing then at least leave neutral feedback describing the issue. This is why packaging is so important. I am sorry you have to go through so much work, but it should be fine. Had same thing happen to me, it was still good. Hang in there.

[Kimikaze]

Thanks for the support and advice, guys!
I'll keep you posted on how it goes with the pins and the eBay seller.

[Kimikaze]

Haven't had time to sit down and straighten those pins, yet, but I was wondering if I need to update my BIOS. Right now, I have Award Phoenix 6.00 G dated 2/3/05.

[uddarts]

you can use this version of winflash. the only box to put a check in is clear cmos.

http://www.dfi.com.tw/Upload/BIOS/Winflash192.zip

download from chaintech

http://www.chaintech.com.tw/a40_downloads.php

you want the one dated 04/19/06 name "bios" in the 2006 folder.


ud

[Kimikaze]

Thanks, UD, but the only bios listed is 04/03/07 (or is it 03/04/07?). There's also no 2006 folder that I can find.

I just read up on the travails of Lenny and I gotta say I'm getting pretty nervous.

[uddarts]

hot link to the bios file

we have had problems with the flashes. newest winflash worked fine for me just the other day. i flashed it with a 3000 winnie and had no problems.

we have your back. ub, gm and i all can hot flash a chip if something does go wrong.


if you can spot the bios i'm mentioned, i can always email it to you.


ud

[TheGlasMan]

http://www.chaintech.com.tw/download...SFJ5WVE9PUM%3D
Try that. Un-RAR it and you will see the various folders.

[Kimikaze]

Got it. Thanks, guys! It's good to know that you're there to help. Here's hoping I won't need to send out a mayday. <gulp>

[Kimikaze]

Whew. BIOS upgrade successful.
There was something that may be normal or not, but when I first re-booted after the flash was successful, the boot paused on "CMOS checksum error - defaults loaded" and "Press F1 to continue or Del to Setup". The Post Code was 7F, FWIW. After pressing F1, it booted to Windows XP.
Then, XP was finding my peripherals as new hardware, including CD burner, DVD drive, IDE controller, and Nvidia nForce AMA(?) controller. I assume this is perfectly normal. Re-booted again when prompted and now I'm here.

How'm I doing so far?
I have only 70% isopropyl alcohol, so I'll have to go to the store tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm gonna run 3DMark06 just for the hell of it so I can compare before/after upgrades.

[supercat]

The cleaner you have is fine, just let it dry completely before reinstalling the heatsink. Clean that heatsink well, and reapply thermal paste. What do you have to use ? Really, after the BIOS flash you could be up and running in ten minutes. Go for it ! Just avoid static, touch back of case etc before handling processor etc.

[uddarts]

what you saw is pretty much what i saw last week. ama controller, who knows?

How'm I doing so far?
I have only 70% isopropyl alcohol, so I'll have to go to the store tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm gonna run 3DMark06 just for the hell of it so I can compare before/after upgrades.

truth be told i use the 70%. did see a gallon of denatured at lowe's for $15 today. that would clean a lot of cpus and heat sinks.


when you get the 3800 in, you'll need to go into the device manager and select computer. you'll have the driver for a single core. update through windows online and it will install the multicore.


ud

[MrNovi]

It doesn't really make any appreciable difference using 70% instead of 90%. What does make a difference is using ISOPROPYL alcohol. What you absolutely have to avoid is Rubbing Alcohol as it has GLYCERIN in it, and that is a bad thing. The Glycerin is a petroleum byproduct that lubricates the skin when you rub it in to prevent chafing. Unfortunately, it also insulates the cpu and hs preventing them from doing their job properly. You can clean it off, but it's a lot harder than just avoiding it's use. As long as the Alcohol you have has no Glycerin and essentially has only two ingredients (alcohol and water) it will be fine.

Denatured alcohol is great for this, but it's cost can be prohibitive. You can usually get a small bottle from your local pharmacist, but it really isn't necessary.

Don

[Kimikaze]

And I'm back. Ran into some problems while other parts went pretty smoothly. First, straightening those pins was a real pain in the buttocks! Had a close call when I accidentally exerted a little too much force on one pin and I felt it almost break. Thankfully, it didn't and I was able to insert the dual core into the socket. I hope that pin doesn't cause me trouble in the future!

Yep, 70% isopropyl worked just fine. That was easy.

Removing my old 3000+ and stock hsf was easier than I thought it would be after running an antivirus scan to heat up the cpu. Did the gentle pull with slight twist back and forth and popped off.

Then, came the hard part. Installing the new Arctic Cooling 64 Freezer Pro. I had to rotate the clamp assembly 90 degrees to orient the fan so it blows air out the rear. Unfortunately, some capacitors behind the socket got in the way, so I could only orient the clamp with the lever facing the front of the mobo. Of course, that meant I had to detach the fan because it blocked the lever. I proceeded to attach the heatsink to the socket assembly. That was a real pain in the rear. The damn clamp kept popping out of those little pins on the heatsink! Had to remove the heatsink from the cpu a few times as I struggled to get this thing clamped down and there was some sliding contact. I hope that won't be a problem in terms of the pre-applied thermal compound.

Here's where I made another goof. After I finally secured the heatsink, I tried to plug in the fan to the Fan 1/CPU Fan connector. Nope, wouldn't fit. Capacitor in the way (damn those capacitors!). There was no room for a 4-pin connector to fit there. So, I connected it instead to the Fan 2/System Fan. I hope that's ok. Would that have any effect on Cool 'n Quiet?

Anyway, powered up and everything seems to be working fine. BIOS shows the x2 3800+. Loaded Windows XP Pro and it automatically detected the new cpu and installed the driver. After reboot, I checked Microsoft Update and didn't find anything else to install. Device Manager shows ACPI Multiprocessor PC under Computer and the cpu appears twice under Processors.

For an informal stress test, I ran Kaspersky AntiVirus full scan while updating Counterspy and used Process Explorer and Nvidia Monitor to monitor the cpu activity and temp. The cpu temp varied from 77 to 84 degrees F while the System temp stayed steady at 95. I'll do a real test tomorrow, probably with Orthos and 3DMark06.

Sorry for the long post. Just trying to sum up and be thorough.
Am I done? I read about AMD's dual core optimizer. Should I install that? Any other suggestions on what to do next?