Does the pencil trick really wear out?

[hatboy]

I've got a Duron 800 that I've overclocked to 950, thanks to the pencil trick. I used 0.5 HB lead in a mechanical pencil to do it. I didn't try to use tiny pieces of graphite, as was suggested in another thread, but instead I just drew the normal lines between the dots. I'm wondering if it's really true that the graphite will wear out (ie stop working) after some amount of time. Has anybody had this happen to their cpu? Is a conductive pen a more permanent solution? Can anybody recommend a good place to get one?

 

[hatboy]

bump

 

[techg]

yeah im wondering the same thing

 

[Subversal]

Some people say they have been running it with no problems for months now. Some people say it didn't last them 1 week.

 

[DaddyG]

Pencil lead is basically a mixture of graphite and clay. The lead lacks a good bonding agent. The ceramic substrate of the cpu goes through a lot of thermal cycles and over time the lead can lose its effectiveness. If you want to do it once, use the defogger kit.

 

[Dexion]

I've been running my CPU with the pencil trick for 3 months now ever since I first did it. Its still running overclocked perfectly with no problems. I can't see how it can wear out if your physically not touching it.

 

[dougjnn]

<If you want to do it once, use the defogger kit.>

I'm down with doing it once. Butttt....whasdat?

 

[Assimilator1]

He means the conductive paint used for repairing demisters-rear heated windows(defoggers)

 

[murdmath]

Mine quit after 3 months. I just put some loctite on last night.

Murdmath

 

[hatboy]

What's loctite? Is that the defogger stuff?

 

[JimMc]

Yes.

 

[RacerX]

Ahh yes ..the age old concept of killing a fly with a sledgehammer.
Just use a pencil, then if it &quot;wears out&quot; you can pull the sink and retrace it.
Odds are you will be buying a new cpu before then anyways.

 

[kengsim]

How much do conductive pens cost, and where can I get them online?

 

[ZeroBurn]

with the high risk of cracking the core, especially on _removal_ of the HSF, i'd personally prefer to remove the HSF and have to reapply the pencil trick as little as possible. i'm going to the defogger kit, just hope my hands are steady enough

 

[dougjnn]

Loctite sounds like the stuff to get to me.

Hey, I might even be able to also multitask the purchase for its labeled use, on the side!!

 

[DaddyG]

Dexion,

Its not necessary to physically touch the pencil. As I explained in my previous post, pencil lead lacks a good binding agent, thermal cycling (repeated expansion and contraction) and the effects of the vibration from the fan mounted on the hsf can cause the connection to degrade.

I'm willing to bet that no two pencil leads are the same, and no two people apply the lead the same.

 

[Milano]

What is the &quot;Pencil Trick&quot;? Anyone got a guide on doing this? Any help would be good.
-Milano

 

[dougjnn]

Here is the pencil trick on our very own AnandTech.

You really should read the whole article through, soup to nuts, if you are new to all this.

 

[RacerX]

I just used an #2 (HB) pencil which I had sitting around in a drawer for like 5 years or more.
Here is another little picture/page on the subject: Where's my Pencil?

 

[ZeroBurn]

also, shouldn't you use a full lead pencil (not graphite) picked up from an art store or such? i'm sure it'd be much more conductive then a regular graphite pencil

 

[Daudi]

can't you just take some of those really small copper strands and TAPE the bridges together? I mean it will LOOK ghetto but who cares what your cpu LOOKS like...nobody's out there submitting their pc's into show events or anything ya know.

 

[wallgecko]

I've had hit and miss success with the pencil bit. Everytime that the clock multipler goes back to normal (on boot up - but remains the mod'd one in bios) appling more 'lead' works. Its something that I even had to do the day after I put the system together. Maybe I'm extra 'rough' on my computer?

Oh and a note on the graphite vs lead thought. The stuff that the Air Force dropped on the powerplants in Yugo &amp; Iraq was graphite strands. Graphite is an extremly good conducter of electricty (it's due to each carbon bonding with only 3 nearest carbon atoms, and thus having an extra electron (since carbon has 4 valence electrons) to allow current flow). That and lead is a pain to work with.


cheers!

 

[gplracer]

I guess i have been lucky. Mine has been working for months. I think i did it in september

 

[hatboy]

I went to a local AutoZone today and bought the Loctite defogger kit. I didn't have much luck with it. It cost about $7 and included a small glass vial of some brown liquid, along with a little pouch which was supposed to contain the actual conductive stuff. The instructions (for fixing an actual defogger) said to first apply the brown liquid and then put on the stuff in the pouch. So, I carefully put on a bit of the liquid, and then some of the stuff in the pouch. I thought I did a pretty good job and none of the connections were touching. I let it dry for about 2 hours. I stuck the cpu back in my system, and it was NOT unlocked (it would only run at 800). So, I tried again, this time applying a slightly thicker coat of the stuff. Again, no success. So, I took some rubbing alcohol and cleaned the gunk off (it does a really nice job) and reapplied some graphite from my pencil (I'm getting pretty good at this by now...). This worked great, and I'm back at 950. Other people have talked about small bottles of the Loctite, so I'm wondering if I got the wrong stuff.

As I've been doing all of this, I had another idea. Would it possibly work to simply put some kind of a sealer over the graphite to prevent it from coming off of the chip? As long as you use something that doesn't conduct electricity, you shouldn't have to be all that careful with it (you could just sort of paint over the connections). I was thinking maybe clear nail polish or something similar. Any suggestions/ideas?

 

[Assimilator1]

The only conductive paint I've seen (not a Loctite kit) ,which is silver paint is already mixed ,it doesn't sound like you have the right stuff.

for fixing an actual defogger

Do you mean attaching or repairing ?