how to tell an OC'ed c2d?

[iseestars]

Hey guys, I bought a used e6600 off ebay. It had what looked like a fingerprint on it, but that wiped off with some handy alcohol and the cpu looked clean. What I was worried about was that the heatsink from the CPU had either a burned or corroded ring (seemed like the outline for former thermal paste). There was some thermal paste on there when I got it, but I wiped that off and it left no trace.

What worries me is that the heatsink looks like that and I'm not sure if there's any normal explanation for why it would look corroded like that. The CPU wasn't lapped - at least I assume (still had the intel writing on it). Supposedly, it hadn't been overclocked and it seems to run fine normally. I'm hesitant to OC it though or whether or not to accept it because I'm worried if it'd been damaged in the past or what not.

Anyone able to shed a little light on this dilema? If it matters I could probably upload some pictures I took when I first got it. Also the pins were a pain in the but to get in right. A couple were stretched out and I had to use one of those tools to crunch em back together so they'd go through the hole again. Raises some questions in my mind since the stuff seemed so haphazardly taken care of. Is someone trying to play me? What do you think?

here're a few pictures of what I'm talking about. Hopefully it makes what I'm talking about more clear (I know it's a little blurry, but best I could do with my cam).

Image 1
Image 2
Image 3

 

[darkfalz]

The perils of second hand computer parts.

There's no way to tell if it had been overclocked. I'd always wondered about that whole "overclocking voids your warranty" business, because there's no way to tell for either CPUs or video cards.

 

[iseestars]

Yeah, I'm mainly asking because I also got a video card with it and the vid card was listed as showing artifacts on some games etc../overheating. The video card seemed to work fine normally, but it was also running 20c hotter than normal for that card. It was getting artifacts when it got around 80C in games. I looked at it a little more carefully.

I've got another one of that gpu already so without removing heatsinks i held them up to each other. The overheating one it seemed like the thermal compound was cracked and solid, whereas mine looked more wet. So I figured at first probably it just needed to have the paste replaced or possibly the heatsink. But after seeing the deal with the CPU makes me wonder a little bit.

Any ideas?

 

[Quiksilver]

It could of just been used excessively in a hot environment.

 

[iseestars]

what does that say about the cpu though? I mean, the whole corrosion/burn ring or whatever on the cpu heatsink - would that be an indication that the cpu at one point overheated/was burned?

Is there an explanation for it that I just don't know? I've built tons of computers and upgraded cpu's etc... over the years and I've never seen anything like that. I'm very careful working inside computers and working with them, so maybe that's part of it, but I'm just wondering if this is some telltale sign of overclocking gone wrong or if I'm just stressing out over nothing.

 

[iseestars]

here're a few pictures of what I'm talking about. Hopefully it makes what I'm talking about more clear (I know it's a little blurry, but best I could do with my cam).

Image 1
Image 2
Image 3

 

[MyLeftNut]

Those marks are fine, you should she the marks left on my heatsink base. The contrast between the cpu contact area and the area that is untouched is night and day. Metals will change slightly in characteristic, especially in contact with other metals found in thermal grease like AS5....

 

[iseestars]

Strange. I've been using OCZ Ultra 5+ Silver (rebadged AS5) and never had that happen with any of my heatsinks. Are there specific conditions that cause it to happen or is it more random or something?

I guess it's just foreign to me, cuz I've done my share of overclocking in the past and never seen the heatsink come out looking like that. Also, I'll note that there was dried thermal paste left on the heatsink when I got it (but not the CPU). That was part of what made me suspicious because it was only in wiping it off that I saw the corroded/burned ring or whatever. This made me think maybe the guy was trying to hide an overclock gone bad.

 

[jjmIII]

Do the HSF and CPU work as expected??

 

[iseestars]

At stock they work fine, but I haven't tried OC'ing at all.

Something strange that happened though, is that the cpu fan got caught with one of the power cords and i pulled it out of the way almost immediately when it happened. But the thing immediately shut down. With my e6300 it never needs to reset like that and I always had time to pull whatever cord out of the way that stuck on there, even when the e6400 was OC'ed to 3ghz. so it's a little weird to me tha tthe e6600 immediately shuts off in the same scenario, but at stock speed.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: iseestars
At stock they work fine, but I haven't tried OC'ing at all.

Something strange that happened though, is that the cpu fan got caught with one of the power cords and i pulled it out of the way almost immediately when it happened. But the thing immediately shut down. With my e6300 it never needs to reset like that and I always had time to pull whatever cord out of the way that stuck on there, even when the e6400 was OC'ed to 3ghz. so it's a little weird to me tha tthe e6600 immediately shuts off in the same scenario, but at stock speed.

That's probably just the motherboard shutting down due to CPU Fan Fail Enabled safety feature in BIOS.

 

[bryanW1995]

I wouldn't worry too much. You bought it used, it works, be happy. Did you reapply thermal paste to the gpu? You should be able to get those temps down if you do. What gpu is it?

 

[MyLeftNut]

Just run dual prime95 on the cpu for 24hrs and see if it passes. Or even overclock it to a very conservative 3.0 ghz which should be very do-able at stock volts and stress test it.

 

[Capitalizt]

I recommend you lap the heatsink regardless. I lapped my brand new Zalman fan that looked PERFECT on the bottom...and still got a 2-3C drop in temps.

 

[iseestars]

I actually applied arctic mx2 thremal paste to the gpu and now it runs about same temps as my original card, maybe a little cooler actually. That's the way it sounded like. After I first put the new past on it was maxing close to 80C, but never actually hit 80 so that's good. It'll probably drop more as the paste works in.

I haven't run stress tests on either yet, but so far it's looking good. I'm not going to bother lapping the heatsink. Did that a couple times in the paste and didn't notice any difference. I might not keep the e6600 (may just stick with the e6300 and hold out for a quad to drop lower in price). So that's the reason I'm worried about whether the CPU was OC'ed in the past. And that's also why I don't want to try overclocking it myself, if I'm potentially gonna sell it.