Discussion
I recently inherited a fairly old PC, which I planned to make into a web server for a bit of a laugh and to learn.
Before formatting it, I did some investigation because the fan was really really noisy. I found it was the CPU fan that was noisy, but before ordering a new one I wanted to see if the PSU fan was as noisy incase I should have ordered one.
Genius here thought that switching it on for a few seconds with no CPUfan/heatsink attached would not kill it so I could hear how loud the other fan was. "Hmm..." I thought as that piece of dust floated pa.."Oh shit its smoke!" Yes it overheated right away, I was quite surprised!
So since I have not got any parts to swap to see how bad the damage is, I am assuming I can wizz the cpu out and replace it and everything else will be ok, or should I ditch the mboard as well? There is no visible damage and were no flames or anything and it didnt smell really but nothing happens when I switch it on.
Cheers in advance, Chris.
Before formatting it, I did some investigation because the fan was really really noisy. I found it was the CPU fan that was noisy, but before ordering a new one I wanted to see if the PSU fan was as noisy incase I should have ordered one.
Genius here thought that switching it on for a few seconds with no CPUfan/heatsink attached would not kill it so I could hear how loud the other fan was. "Hmm..." I thought as that piece of dust floated pa.."Oh shit its smoke!" Yes it overheated right away, I was quite surprised!
So since I have not got any parts to swap to see how bad the damage is, I am assuming I can wizz the cpu out and replace it and everything else will be ok, or should I ditch the mboard as well? There is no visible damage and were no flames or anything and it didnt smell really but nothing happens when I switch it on.
Cheers in advance, Chris.
Mobo should be fine. As it's old, you might as well get the most grunty processor you can for that motherboard (i.e. P1-233, P2-450, P3-1.13Ghz), if you can get the model number off of it and play with google you'll be able to find out what the maximum is. After that a quick play with fleabay and you're laughing.
When I got my first Athlon (1.1 Ghz, were they called XPs then?) it was one of the series that ran REALLY hot, especially for the time when P3s/4s and slot athlons you never really thought about temperature.
Did a test boot without the heatsink and fan. Didn't even boot as it overheated so quickly.
Luckily it survived, but not without an impressive brown burnt area on the size of a penny on the bottom of the chip which I showed everybody when I could (you know your life has been a bit sad when at university you are showing people the underneath of your CPU
, but then again my housemate watercooled his cpu, graphics card and PSU).
Even if the fan simply fails but the heatsink is still on, the chip can still overheat to the point of ceasing working.
Did a test boot without the heatsink and fan. Didn't even boot as it overheated so quickly.
Luckily it survived, but not without an impressive brown burnt area on the size of a penny on the bottom of the chip which I showed everybody when I could (you know your life has been a bit sad when at university you are showing people the underneath of your CPU
, but then again my housemate watercooled his cpu, graphics card and PSU). Even if the fan simply fails but the heatsink is still on, the chip can still overheat to the point of ceasing working.
pentoman said:
Even if the fan simply fails but the heatsink is still on, the chip can still overheat to the point of ceasing working.
Hence the first bit of advice I always post in the "my computer is unstable" threads is to check the fans / heatsinks for gunge. They'll usually crash a lot before they burn... which is handy 
I've heard of, but never seen evidence, of machines being delivered and due to an impact the lugs on the ZIF socket have snapped... plug-in, turn on, warranty replacement, all in the space of 30 seconds
ThePassenger said:
Mobo should be fine. As it's old, you might as well get the most grunty processor you can for that motherboard (i.e. P1-233, P2-450, P3-1.13Ghz), if you can get the model number off of it and play with google you'll be able to find out what the maximum is. After that a quick play with fleabay and you're laughing.
Its an XP1800+ or something like that. Figured those chips should be cheap enough on fleabay.
Cheers.
What sort of machine is it?
If it has an ATX box, you'll be fine. As personally I wouldn't waste the money on a socket A chip.
I'd upgrade, Socket 939 mobo, Athlon64 3200 (with CPU fan), and 2x256mb DDR333 memory sticks came to just over £100 including delivery from ebuyer.
And you'd have a much better machine.
If it has an ATX box, you'll be fine. As personally I wouldn't waste the money on a socket A chip.
I'd upgrade, Socket 939 mobo, Athlon64 3200 (with CPU fan), and 2x256mb DDR333 memory sticks came to just over £100 including delivery from ebuyer.
And you'd have a much better machine.
annodomini2 said:
What sort of machine is it?
If it has an ATX box, you'll be fine. As personally I wouldn't waste the money on a socket A chip.
I'd upgrade, Socket 939 mobo, Athlon64 3200 (with CPU fan), and 2x256mb DDR333 memory sticks came to just over £100 including delivery from ebuyer.
And you'd have a much better machine.
If it has an ATX box, you'll be fine. As personally I wouldn't waste the money on a socket A chip.
I'd upgrade, Socket 939 mobo, Athlon64 3200 (with CPU fan), and 2x256mb DDR333 memory sticks came to just over £100 including delivery from ebuyer.
And you'd have a much better machine.
Yeah its an atx, but although upgrading must be cheap, I really dont need any sort of performance on it. I could spend that £100 on my new car!
Thanks for the tip though.
Also, I swapped it out into my pc (xp2400) and it didnt work, so its cooked alright. Just scouring ebay now.
Cheers folks
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