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Comment by Aurornis

15 hours ago

Hardcore builders will remove the lid of their CPU to get the best possible thermal contact. The performance improvement is very small and not worth it but the bragging rights are fun. Unless you destroy the chip while delidding it, that is.

14 comments

Aurornis

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jdiff  15 hours ago

The article mentions this, but this was before CPUs had lids. When delidding a CPU, you have to be very careful not to crack the silicon die that you are applying force directly to. In the case of this Athlon, even care wasn't enough.

srean  12 hours ago

Your comment reminded me of my K6 (or was it a K7) based PC I had assembled as a high schooler of modest means.

My goto testing protocol was to recompile the Linux kernel and make GNU chess play itself at the highest settings.

I was quite disheartened to find that my rig would crash out repeatedly. Not a single successful compilation of the kernel. Then on a whim I removed the case and pointed my table fan at it. Voila, everything worked.

I had planned to get some more thermal paste and redo the thermals and put the case back. But I never did.

Then one day the dialer of my landline got fried by a thunderstorm. No problem I used to dial using my modem and my skeletonic linux box.

Great setup when the money is tight. Good times.

  • anyfoo  6 hours ago

    I tried everything for my IBM 6x86 PR166+. Everything. Pretty much every BIOS setup option, fans, reapplying thermal paste… still, the machine would often not survive a Linux kernel build without SIGSEGV, or just randomly hang.

    Much later I finally noticed that the PSU, that I had in this same case ever since the PC started out as a 486, was something ridiculous, like 75W or so. I got a new cheap PSU, and finally the spookiness stopped.

  • joaquincabezas  11 hours ago

    Table fan was the way to go in our first LAN party during the summer of the year 2000 in the south of Spain. These computer case side panels were all piled against the wall.

  • inigyou  10 hours ago

    as a kid I once had a PC that would make a very loud siren noise when it was overheating. I don't know why they thought that was a good idea but I did solve it by pointing a fan at it. Somehow my parents never came and asked what's that noise.

xattt  14 hours ago

Flip-chip packaging is still common in laptops. Still a (albeit minor) risk if you're repasting an older laptop.

  • formerly_proven  13 hours ago

    The article is mistaken, all the lidded chips (discussed here) are also flip chip/C4. Just with a metal plate on top. That would be in contrast to the earlier lidded chips (like a 68k or i486) with ceramic packages, where the chip is mounted right side up on the ceramic package and then wire bonded, the lid just covers the bond wires.