got lucky today (long)...

wol-va-rine

Fully Optimized
Messages
2,104
my processor crapped out last night (pentium 4, 1.5ghz willamette socket 478), I was ordering my new upgrade today anyways, but still wanted to use this mobo, it was my first build, not new build, but first build nonetheless, it has sentimental value to me, she even talks to me (you asus p4b owners know what I'm talking about)...

so all day I'm driving around to pc shops, thrift stores, goodwills trying to find older computers that may have a socket 478 processor, I'm determined to hear my baby say more than "system failed cpu test" over and over...

needless to say, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack and the search turned up no results, though I did find this at the goodwill, brand new, unopened in the plastic case for $15 :D ...

AFT portable/dockable 12 in 1 card reader...

so as a last resort I stopped by CompUSA and asked one of the repair/upgrade techs if they saved any parts like old processors and stuff from upgrades, he said no, then I looked over to a guy further down the counter than me who had a mobo sitting on the counter (his old mobo) with heatsink, memory and video card installed...

I walked over and asked him if it was his and he said yes, then we started to talk about what was wrong with it and he said it was an older processor ( :eek: ), "a pentium 4 socket 477 or something" and it crapped out on him, so he was getting a new motherboard (and processor I assume)...

I knew there wasn't a socket 477, so my eyes lit up when he said that and I asked him if he would sell it to me, he said "make me an offer", so I said $20, he said "$30", I then said "$40 for the heatsink, processor and memory", there were 2 sticks of memory, the one I could read was 512mb, the other one's capacity was inconsequential at that point (I'm still not sure if it's ddr or ddr2 because my asus only has 168 pin slots for sdram, the notch is off center, which I think means it's ddr)...

he said yes (I figured that the new mobo must've had different memory, maybe ddr2, or he would've said no and kept it) and added "another $20 will get you the video card and some kind of psu true power converter (it was a card that slid into a slot I had never seen before and had a female 4 pin molex connector), I looked at the video card and it had 2 heatsinks above and to the right of a heatsink and fan on the card, I figured what the hell, I'm already way ahead if everything works, so I paid him $60...

in the excitement of getting a sliver of hope to bring my baby back to life I forgot to get the bracket for the heatsink, but figured I'd just transfer my aerocool ht-101jr over, this is the heatsink that I got from him...

ShowImage.asp


except the one I got was all copper and I think this was the culprit in his cpu failure (or I believe shutdown, as they tend to do when they overheat, thus avoiding any permanent damage), it isn't listed as being compatible with socket 478 processors and has a weird swinging assembly type thingy that goes into a pci slot IIRC, and there was no fan, just gobbs of thermal paste practically fusing the heatsink and cpu together (it was hard to separate them when I got home, 50% rubbing alcohol, 10 q-tips and 15 minutes later the operation was complete)...

anyway, when I separated the heatsink and the cpu, I couldn't read the specs, so I just popped it in and put the heatsink on...

I am now running a pentium 4, 3.0ghz Northwood, but I can't change any of the specs to overclock and it's stuck at running 2.4 ghz (15x160fsb), maybe because of a motherboard limitation...? either way, I have a faster processor and 2 sticks of ddr ram and a video card that I have to check on, all for $60...

it was a good day...
 
freestyler105 said:
You lucky bastard!

I edited my post, the zalman was the culprit IMO, and it just kept shutting down because of overheating, hopefully there was no permanent damage, though not being able to tweak it has me confused...

it's been running about 42* celcius with a compatible heatsink and fan...

:D
 
wol-va-rine said:
I edited my post, the zalman was the culprit IMO, and it just kept shutting down because of overheating, hopefully there was no permanent damage, though not being able to tweak it has me confused...

it's been running about 42* celcius with a compatible heatsink and fan...

:D
Not bad temps, but certainly not extremely good either.
 
freestyler105 said:
Not bad temps, but certainly not extremely good either.

I am wondering what temps he was getting, or if he was even checking them at all...
 
wol-va-rine said:
I am wondering what temps he was getting, or if he was even checking them at all...
Yeah...I doubt the processor was damaged at all, it would've just shut down. Maybe he was using too much thermal paste, and that was messing things up.
 
freestyler105 said:
Yeah...I doubt the processor was damaged at all, it would've just shut down. Maybe he was using too much thermal paste, and that was messing things up.

another bad sign was the lack of a fan...

:eek:

any ideas on why it won't let me change the cpu speed to manual...? mobo limitations...? I'm underclocked right now...

weird...
 
wol-va-rine said:
my processor crapped out last night (pentium 4, 1.5ghz willamette socket 478), I was ordering my new upgrade today anyways, but still wanted to use this mobo, it was my first build, not new build, but first build nonetheless, it has sentimental value to me, she even talks to me (you asus p4b owners know what I'm talking about)...

so all day I'm driving around to pc shops, thrift stores, goodwills trying to find older computers that may have a socket 478 processor, I'm determined to hear my baby say more than "system failed cpu test" over and over...

needless to say, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack and the search turned up no results, though I did find this at the goodwill, brand new, unopened in the plastic case for $15 :D ...

AFT portable/dockable 12 in 1 card reader...

so as a last resort I stopped by CompUSA and asked one of the repair/upgrade techs if they saved any parts like old processors and stuff from upgrades, he said no, then I looked over to a guy further down the counter than me who had a mobo sitting on the counter (his old mobo) with heatsink, memory and video card installed...

I walked over and asked him if it was his and he said yes, then we started to talk about what was wrong with it and he said it was an older processor ( :eek: ), "a pentium 4 socket 477 or something" and it crapped out on him, so he was getting a new motherboard (and processor I assume)...

I knew there wasn't a socket 477, so my eyes lit up when he said that and I asked him if he would sell it to me, he said "make me an offer", so I said $20, he said "$30", I then said "$40 for the heatsink, processor and memory", there were 2 sticks of memory, the one I could read was 512mb, the other one's capacity was inconsequential at that point (I'm still not sure if it's ddr or ddr2 because my asus only has 168 pin slots for sdram, the notch is off center, which I think means it's ddr)...

he said yes (I figured that the new mobo must've had different memory, maybe ddr2, or he would've said no and kept it) and added "another $20 will get you the video card and some kind of psu true power converter (it was a card that slid into a slot I had never seen before and had a female 4 pin molex connector), I looked at the video card and it had 2 heatsinks above and to the right of a heatsink and fan on the card, I figured what the hell, I'm already way ahead if everything works, so I paid him $60...

in the excitement of getting a sliver of hope to bring my baby back to life I forgot to get the bracket for the heatsink, but figured I'd just transfer my aerocool ht-101jr over, this is the heatsink that I got from him...

ShowImage.asp


except the one I got was all copper and I think this was the culprit in his cpu failure (or I believe shutdown, as they tend to do when they overheat, thus avoiding any permanent damage), it isn't listed as being compatible with socket 478 processors and has a weird swinging assembly type thingy that goes into a pci slot IIRC, and there was no fan, just gobbs of thermal paste practically fusing the heatsink and cpu together (it was hard to separate them when I got home, 50% rubbing alcohol, 10 q-tips and 15 minutes later the operation was complete)...

anyway, when I separated the heatsink and the cpu, I couldn't read the specs, so I just popped it in and put the heatsink on...

I am now running a pentium 4, 3.0ghz Northwood, but I can't change any of the specs to overclock and it's stuck at running 2.4 ghz (15x160fsb), maybe because of a motherboard limitation...? either way, I have a faster processor and 2 sticks of ddr ram and a video card that I have to check on, all for $60...

it was a good day...

Nice buy! I don't know why it would be running at just 2.4, but whatever; still a lot faster than 1.5. Lawl @ your sig. :p UCed Core 1 uno
 
Back
Top Bottom