gogogadgetearl . <-- n00b sauce
2007.02.14
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well, i almost saw $250 [or more] go down the drain in an instant last night. i recently ordered a dual-core AMD Athlon X2 4600+ to upgrade my current machine at home. it came in the mail yesterday, and i decided to install it (along with a new cooler). the old cooler [stock] was stuck to the old processor [AMD Athlon 64 3200+] -- it could still slide side-to-side [due to the thermal grease], but it wouldn't lift on any side. i ended up [accidentally] removing the old cooler and the old processor in one fell swoop - without unlocking the processor slot. owell, no pins broke off in there. so i unlocked the slot, installed the new proc, locked the slot, installed the new cooler, and turned the machine on. just after the POST screen, the machine informed me that the new CPU wasn't recognized by my motherboard's current BIOS. oops - i forgot to update the BIOS. ::sigh:: so i remove the new cooler, and then try to remove the new processor as carefully as possible. well, i didn't do it carefully enough...because i dropped it...from about 2 feet...back into the case. CRAP!! i pick it back up and realize that i bent a good ~15 pins. CRAPx2!! at least 8 of them were bent more than 45 degrees. ::sigh:: well, with nothing left to lose, i decided to get a toothpick to try to un-bend them. it worked, and now the new proc is in my machine running seemingly fine. ::whew:: who knows how long it will last...but it's working for now, so i can't complain. :-)
yeah, n00b sauce.
comments
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well, now that its up and running, how is it handling? I assume it is way faster than just the single core. And how is that big stinkin x1950?
- [ 2007.02.14 | 12:29:32pm ]
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the new proc is running just fine! i haven't done anything that's required some hard crunching yet, so i can't tell you much about that. but i can say that i'm getting ~15 more FPS in WoW. not too shabby.
i want to say that my machine is booting faster now, but it seems to hang for 15-20 seconds just after the POST screen and just before the vista loading screen. once it gets past that, vista loads 2x as fast (or faster). i don't know why it seems to pause like that. to be honest, it might be the new BIOS that i flashed in. i've noticed that the image on the POST splash screen seems corrupted [the whole image isn't being displayed]. that might have something to do with it. i'm still looking into it.
I haven't received the X1950 yet. i'll let you know how that is when i get it.- [ 2007.02.14 | 1:03:52pm ]
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I know that whenever I used my splash screen during POST, it always seemed to take longer than not using it, it may have something to do with using the BIOS processes been diverted to graphics processing. So, I disabled it and knocked off 5 more seconds in XP. I am sure that has already been taken into consideration.
On a side note- I began thinking about other times my computer would hang up in POST, like when I had my external HDDs set defaulted with PnP off, I would have to disconnect and reboot. That led me to think about a major shortcoming in my Nine-Hundred case design. I am not entirely sure it is solely the case or not, but for some reason, whenever I connect my ZVM to WMP11 with my Gomadic universal cables, the USB port on the top of the case short and lock up the system. I don't know if I need to give them more power or what. And it isn't every time, but it seems like it comes from static or something.- [ 2007.02.14 | 1:23:01pm ]