[geeks] New small Intel Board

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Joshua Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net>
>Date: 2008/06/05 Thu PM 07:05:32 EDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] New small Intel Board

>On Thu, Jun 05, 2008 at 11:57:34PM +0100, Mark wrote:
>> On 5 Jun 2008, at 23:50, Joshua Boyd wrote:
>> >... I don't really want to install my own CPU, although it
>> >is probably easier now than it was in the P4 monster days.
>> 
>> The KPC looks to use the same LGA775 socket as the P4, so fitting the  
>> CPU and sink is probably almost as much of a PITA as it was on a P4. I  
>> know my dad built a C2d PC and it was a exactly the same as the P4  
>> setup if yo used the Intel sink. A real PITA with thos silly push-down  
>> tab things.
>
>yep, that is probably why I didn't want to do it.
>
>The most recent I'd worked on is first generation P4 2.8ghz (first gen
>meaning the first time they hit 2.8, not that it is actually a first gen
>P4), and it wasn't fun and I'd heard that newer P4s just got worse.
>
>I was hoping that in the case of the C2D, you wouldn't have to worry
>quite as much about your thermal paste job though.  I've heard a lot of
>people say that if you use too much you ruin the CPU and if you use too
>little you ruin the CPU.

The "stock" Intel cooling solutions use a pre-applied thermal paste and is no problem. IMHO, if you use too much or too little thermal paste, you probably don't know what you are doing (that's an opinion, not a researched fact) and destroying the CPU was almost inevitable.

There are third-party cooling solutions that are much more secure, using a screw-down mechanisim that requires you to add a mounting plate under the MB. The goofy clips on the stock Intel MB are designed so the solution can be installed with the MB pre-installed in the chassis. I agree they are goofy (the first system I built got shipped to a customer and the heatsink wasn't installed properly, so it shot around inside the server during transit. No real problems, other than it didn't work ;^)

That was wehn I went to a "screw-down" cooling solution for those MBs (I think they were CoolerMaster parts).

Lionel