HN

Comments (77)

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  c0l0
  Ouch, that poor die :(I remember it well, back in the very early 2000s, when my own Athlon XP 1800+ (an AGOIA stepping, I do know that for sure :D) met its untimely end at the hands of a device that was designed to prevent the exact misfortune that killed its sister CPU as seen in this submission!The fragile silicon was a problem the enthusiast/PC-builder community was very aware of, and the market responded with "spacer" kits you could buy for a few $$$ that were cut from solid sheets of thin copper. These spacers would carefully wrap around all the little bumps on the CPU's upper side, and provide a level plane for the heatsink to rest upon, while still establishing direct contact with the die that it was supposed to cool down. So there was, in theory, decidedly less of a chance of killing your CPU by having the heatsink meet it in an unfortunate angle, or something to that effect.Unfortunately, the spacer that I had bought turned out to be just a wee little bit too thick, and, despite thermal paste (Arctic Silver!), the CPU did not in fact make contact with the heatsink (something shiny from Thermalright or Zalman, I think?) at all, which killed it instantly as soon as I powered up the rig for the first time. That's what it was like back in the days, when we got to school walking ten miles uphill (both ways) barefoot in deep snow.I had to put in some overtime at the small PC shop I worked after school back then, to afford a measly Duron 800 as its replacement. And still they keep claiming that time heals all wounds... ;)
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  Aurornis
  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.
• M95D
  I learned (can't remember where) that I should try to rotate the cooler a little bit, with the mounting clamp still on, before undoing the clamp and removing it.I still have a working Athlon XP / KT133A with ISA under my desk.
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  Waterluvian
  I've been assembling my own desktop PCs since I was about 15, but I have never gotten comfortable with just how much pressure it takes to affix some heat sinks. I think it was my Thunderbird 1200 where you had to press a slotted-head screwdriver on the lever to force it down and under the clasp.
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  Torkel
  Is that actually the silicon that's on top of a cpu?I've always assumed the silicon is super thin - "wafer" thin. And then some material is added where the bonding wires etc are embedded in and the pads or pins are attached to.For sure it's like this on newer CPUs, where there is not a single piece of silicon bit rather multiple ones with interconnect between them.
• emh68
  The first computer I bought with my own money was an Athlon XP. Probably got the motherboard and CPU from Comp USA or Office Max or something. I bought it specifically to play The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind! It felt like it was obsolete in a week, the way Moore's Law was rocking at that time.And yeah, when I opened the box and saw that the CPU had a fragile ceramic/glass top like that, I had a mini panic attack.These days, of course I have a few in my retro collection, but I'll never remove the heatsinks. The CPU and motherboards might as well be one unit, never to be separated again.
• timcobb
  This happened to me several times with Athlons in 2000, the die on these would break exceptionally easily such that it was a known issue at the time. You had to be quite careful.
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  theandrewbailey
  The first time I built a PC, and the first time I mounted a heatsink, was to one of these bare die AMD CPUs. I heard about the fragility of these, and must have read the directions about ten times, and paused and checked each step about five times while doing it. It came out fine, but it was nerve wracking as hell.Overclocking an Athlon XP 2500+ to a 3200+ was pretty cool. Easiest overclock ever.
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  anonymousiam
  I've got one sitting next to me that I'm in the process of rejuvenating. The north bridge has a small fan with integrated heatsink/boat that I'm searching for. The CPU fan is still okay. It's a pre-PCIe system, and has a VGA output (no DVI or HDMI).The main reason I'm keeping it around is that it's got 5-1/4" & 3-1/2" floppy drives, and T1000 and DDR4 tape drives.
• jamesforestwest
  Oh man, the nostalgia. I had an Athlon XP too, and I still remember that fear when installing the heatsink. One wrong move and you're basically screwed...
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  8cvor6j844qw_d6
  Is it ever fixable assuming one had unlimited money and wants to fix instead of rebuy?
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  nubinetwork
  Heat probably cracked it. I had a xp2000+ and even with a heavy copper heatsink and a 9000rpm delta fan, the thing still ran hot.
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  lazyweb
  Socket 370 and Socket A were very easy to break. You needed a flat head screwdriver to pry off the metal bracket which held the cooler in place. Apply a little too much force (or just repeat the process a few times) and watch the plastic nook break off of the socket, rendering the entire mainboard useless. Zip-ties or super glue might save you, if just for a while. But good luck moving/transporting the computer then.
• hno8a34nwn
  More people should think like this
• pjmlp
  Poor CPU.My last desktop multimedia PC was powered by Athlon XP.
• RetroTechie
  DIP and PGA packages for the win!
• baddash
  AFLAC!?
• avazhi
  We need those microscope guys to take some shots of this.
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  logicallee
  Why are chips still built in only a few layers?Even modern silicon only has some 60 of them right?Plus don't transformers work in layers, making it natural to put a bunch of layers on top of each other? Regarding cooling, couldn't there be liquid cooling through a plumbing network in the same die?Our brain takes quite a large volume, and we want chips that have a similar level of parts count (achieved - 80 billion neurons) and interconnectedness (not yet, around 10k synapses per neuron). Why do it in 80 2D layers? Is there no way to etch silicon in 3D?