Ten Years Ago Today

I remember the terrifying experience every time I used a flathead screwdriver to push down one side of the clip...which happened to be polished...all the while imagining just how much damage would be wreaked if the screwdriver slid off and transferred all the force to the motherboard.
 
Stiletto said:
I remember the terrifying experience every time I used a flathead screwdriver to push down one side of the clip...which happened to be polished...all the while imagining just how much damage would be wreaked if the screwdriver slid off and transferred all the force to the motherboard.
Click to expand...

I did actually punch a hole through a particularly cheap ECS P4 MB once because of that. I had been using coolers that bolt through the board in my own stuff for a long time before then and I never owned a P4 system. This one was for work. My employer told me others had done the same thing, and they just wrote off the boards without any punishment to the tech. He figured it was more of an Intel/ECS design flaw.

Remember the Alpha PAL8045? I jumped on that cooler the first time I saw it, considering all others too inferior to consider.
 
I was working in a PC shop building new machines on socket A and had this happen a few too many times. Man that was a fun HS job.
 
dgingeri said:
I did actually punch a hole through a particularly cheap ECS P4 MB once because of that. I had been using coolers that bolt through the board in my own stuff for a long time before then and I never owned a P4 system. This one was for work. My employer told me others had done the same thing, and they just wrote off the boards without any punishment to the tech. He figured it was more of an Intel/ECS design flaw.

Remember the Alpha PAL8045? I jumped on that cooler the first time I saw it, considering all others too inferior to consider.
Click to expand...

I was too busy jumping on the Cooler Master Jet. Still haven't seen a cooler looking HSF.
 
Stiletto said:
I remember the terrifying experience every time I used a flathead screwdriver to push down one side of the clip...which happened to be polished...all the while imagining just how much damage would be wreaked if the screwdriver slid off and transferred all the force to the motherboard.
Click to expand...

I had that happen more than once on Socket A heat sinks. The one that sticks out in my mind was a ThermalTake heat sink, don't remember the model. It had a perfect tab for the screwdriver so that it would slip, and the tab broke.

Somehow no permanent damage was done to the board, I was impressed with the ruggedness of Asus back then.
 
That looks AWESOME !

:rolleyes:

Anybody ever install a 486 rotated 90 or 180 degree from pin 1 ??

(yup, i did)
 
GuruX said:
...and I thought ripping out a SATA port was bad! :)
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Pretty common back then, still quite common these day's on those cheap mATX ASRock/ECS motherboards.

10 years ago aye? Wow I think I may remembered playing around flashing the 4600 Bios on the 4200 after some physical mod's.

I also do remember strapping a Pentium 3 stock HSF to a Geforce4 MX card. Good times indeed.
 
Oh the days of socket 7 and socket 462, how I miss thee.

My buddy still has a working Abit NF7-S with an XP 2500 mobile we oced to hell and back.

Those where the days. ;)
 
Stiletto said:
I remember the terrifying experience every time I used a flathead screwdriver to push down one side of the clip...which happened to be polished...all the while imagining just how much damage would be wreaked if the screwdriver slid off and transferred all the force to the motherboard.
Click to expand...

Had that slippage happen to me once. Mainboard still worked great post gash. :D
 
Yeah...I don't miss clip heatsinks...

I remember when I had my Thermalright heatsink on my old AMD rig from early 2000's...I thought I broke something when I got that thing to finally clip on with a rather loud SNAP.

First time I thought I was going to need a new pair of pants.
 
I remember my screw driver jumping off the heat-sink and though a main board once when i was installing a Thermal-take Blue Orb! No warranty returns on that sucker. Good in those days the CPU was worth all the money and not the motherboard.
 
I remember those stupid socket A retention clips.... I almost destroyed an ECS board on my first build when the screwdriver slipped off and knocked the board. I got lucky.

The other design flaw was the exposed cores that I saw numerous people complain about cracking. That had me pretty worried on my first build.
 
Just last year i pulled a CPU out with heatsink. That was terrifying.
 
Uberazza said:
I remember my screw driver jumping off the heat-sink and though a main board once when i was installing a Thermal-take Blue Orb! No warranty returns on that sucker. Good in those days the CPU was worth all the money and not the motherboard.
Click to expand...
I still have that heat sink sitting somewhere, great hunk of metal.
 
jojo69 said:
actually that is a new one on me...do want
Click to expand...

I still have a PEP66, a PAL 8045, a 6035, and a Slot 1 Alpha pal 3125. I don't know why I kept those heatsinks this long. Have a nice museum started I guess LOL.
 
Those heatsinks combined with the Thunderbird CPU cores where it had the tiny core sticking out and if you rocked the cooler back and forth too much fighting the clips, youd crack the core.....
 
I still have a Swiftech MC462 in a drawer somewhere. Its not clip mounted but the MC370 I also have tucked away is... :)
 
weebling1 said:
That looks AWESOME !

:rolleyes:

Anybody ever install a 486 rotated 90 or 180 degree from pin 1 ??

(yup, i did)
Click to expand...

Bah, try installing a K6-2 350 backwards, because Soyo misprinted the 'pin 1' markings on the wrong side of the socket...

First time I saw the magic smoke, board was toast, but the CPU survived.
 
thedge said:
Those heatsinks combined with the Thunderbird CPU cores where it had the tiny core sticking out and if you rocked the cooler back and forth too much fighting the clips, youd crack the core.....
Click to expand...

Oi! I got lucky and only took a small chunk off the corner of mine. CPU still ran strong though. :D
 
thedge said:
Those heatsinks combined with the Thunderbird CPU cores where it had the tiny core sticking out and if you rocked the cooler back and forth too much fighting the clips, youd crack the core.....
Click to expand...

also not paying attention and installing the heatsink the wrong way, i.e. turned 180°, which resulted in a crushed die.

thankfully nobody noticed during RMA :D good times.
 
Possibly the worst retention system for an exposed core CPU you could design.

My heart would sink whenever I'd be asked to work on one of those.
 
Man I hated putting on heatsinks with those. I guess we soon moved to heatsinks that screwed into the holes by the socket. Thermalright was one I think I used that was one of the last with the clips. I guess the changeover started with 80mm fans on heatsinks??
 
[RIP]Zeus;1039393080 said:
Oh the days of socket 7 and socket 462, how I miss thee.

My buddy still has a working Abit NF7-S with an XP 2500 mobile we oced to hell and back.

Those where the days. ;)
Click to expand...

NF7-S + Barton core mobile chip oc'd to about 2.8 on air was my first build. thems were the days....

think i still have that girl sitting around somewhere too. :cool:
 
The moment I first got my hands on such a HS job I immediately constructes a nonslip screwdriver just for all those jobs, still have it on my PC workbench. With that I have never even felt close to harming a motherboard since then, or before...
 
[RIP]Zeus;1039393080 said:
Oh the days of socket 7 and socket 462, how I miss thee.

My buddy still has a working Abit NF7-S with an XP 2500 mobile we oced to hell and back.

Those where the days. ;)
Click to expand...

I had the same setup... so much fun back then. :)
 
Stiletto said:
I remember the terrifying experience every time I used a flathead screwdriver to push down one side of the clip...which happened to be polished...all the while imagining just how much damage would be wreaked if the screwdriver slid off and transferred all the force to the motherboard.
Click to expand...

You and me both. So many heart-in-throat moments when I slip and scratch the motherboard and prayers afterwards that the computer will still power on.
 
Stiletto said:
I remember the terrifying experience every time I used a flathead screwdriver to push down one side of the clip...which happened to be polished...all the while imagining just how much damage would be wreaked if the screwdriver slid off and transferred all the force to the motherboard.
Click to expand...

This.
 
Stiletto said:
I remember the terrifying experience every time I used a flathead screwdriver to push down one side of the clip...which happened to be polished...all the while imagining just how much damage would be wreaked if the screwdriver slid off and transferred all the force to the motherboard.
Click to expand...

And that is why it was best to use a small nut driver so you had pretty much no chance of slipping.
 
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