The HSF Story

The Zalman CNPS7000A was finally purchased, from the benevolent Doctor. However, not wanting to ruin the nice uptime of my OS, I waited a few days with the installation. Then I suddenly, and accidently, rebooted. So the installation may finally commence!

First of all, we need a redshirt (or in this case, a "beigeshirt") to risk his life, tampering with the inner workings of the mighty Enterprise computer. Here he is!

And here is the CNPS7000A, a beauty isn't she?

But, since she has been in the hands of the Doctor, she is all dusty, and needs to be cleaned. So, we'll start with dismantling the fan, to facilitate cleansing.

After a few minutes in the sink, she is is cleaner than ever, look at that luster!

Since the complex construction of copper needs a few moments to dry, let's prepare the Enterprise! Here she stands, all mighty and powerful!

A lot lof cords to disconnect...

Placed on my bed, she may be disassembled

The old, and inefficient Intel Standard Heatsink and Fan. Off you go!

My beautiful CPU, the 3,2 Ghz Pentium 4, still refusing to provide me with a good picture of her...

Impatient as I am, I dried the last drops of water from the CNPS7000A, using a towel. Then I proceeded to apply the Thermal Grease. This was a tricky business, and I was really worried about not getting it right. It came out looking like this

Then the problems leading up to The Horrendous experience, started. First of all, I had real trouble getting the fan back on the heatsing in a good position. Eventueally I succeded, only to find that the fit of the clips for the Socket 478, was dissatisfying to say the least. I had to bend the metal back and forth, in order to get both screws to fit in the holes. I was a bit concerned about damaging the CPU, especially after reading about how the 462 Socket may crack when exposed to pressure. When I finally managed to fasten the CNPS7000A in a manner I considered satisfying, I put everything back together again.

This was when The Horrendous experience took place! I had gotten Enterprise back to her place under the table and reconnected all the wires when I pressed the ATX button to activate the main PSU. The Fans began to turn, the hard drives span up, and everything seemed fine. This was certainly not the case however, I learned seconds aftwerwards. The familiar motherboard beep didn't sound, and when I looked up at the screen, the "No signal" text stared into my face. I started to sweat, I saw my personal economy for the next year completely ruined. I tried booting it up once more, to listen for error noices, like the ones I heard when trying to connect my Celeron CPU (which used a different Socket) to the motherboard. I heard nothing. I was now convinced that my CPU was broken, but just to be sure I decided to try the old HSF once. When opening the case, I realised what the problem had been all along. I had forgotten to connect the ATX wire supplying the CPU with power.

So, with this problem fixed, this is what she looks like now

And this time, everything works! With the new HSF in place, my computer is cooler than ever, literally ;)