I just did the most stupidest thing ever.

[zCypher]

I was building a system, all seemed well. Hooked everything up/plugged everything in, started her up... set up the BIOS, installed Windows XP. All is well. Put in driver CD for mainboard (sound/lan/etc), set up all the drivers. Smooth as silk, no problems. Install modem driver. Beautiful.

It's a basic AMD XP2000+ w/paltry 128MB DDR, 30GB 7200, etc. Just a basic low end barebones system. Retail box CPU with the HSF that comes with, no heatsink compound even. I shut down so my manager can yank the XP2000+ cpu for another system. He touches the heatsink to undo it, and ... BAM, he jumps back "FVCK!" :Q

Turns out, SOMEHOW, I actually forgot to connect the CPU fan. WTF? H-T-F did I manage that? I feel disgusted/ashamed with myself that I could actually do such a stupid thing considering my job. I don't deserve it. Nah but seriously usually I do an excellent, thorough job. I don't know how this slipped this time.

In any case... where my amazement REALLY comes from is - the CPU is fine, it ran ALL that time with no HSF running, and it didn't burn up! Despite running at 100+ degrees apparently. I thought that it would have burned up in ten seconds! I guess AMD has come a long way in their Athlon technology?

Just wanted to share this tidbit of self stupidity, hopefully it entertained at least someone and also serves as a reminder, don't forget to connect the cpu fan.

/wallows in self pity

PS: Sorry for the slightly OT-ish post, but I figured the topic belonged in GH.

 

[Acanthus]

Way more than 100f, athlons sit around 140f with stock cooling with the fans running. Probably closer to 100c.

Edit: looking again you may have mean celcius i forget we arent all americans ><.

 

[zCypher]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Way more than 100f, athlons sit around 140f with stock cooling with the fans running. Probably closer to 100c.

Sorry I should have clarified. I am talking C, not F. It literally burned my manager's finger, left a nasty little mark.

Half an hour later, the HSF is still hotter than it is at regular operating temperature. Friggin insane. I'm quite thoroughly impressed that the processor seemingly took no damage to this. Wow.

 

[charlie21]

Out of curosity one time, I touched a heatsink on a running Duron 800. I didn't have a temp sensor installed, so I don't know exactly how hot it was, but it was hot enough to burn 3 lines on my index finger from the fins of the heatsink. And that was with a fan running.

 

[Corporate Thug]

anyone can make a mistake, atleast nothing really happened to the system

 

[joecool]

Originally posted by: charlie21
Out of curosity one time, I touched a heatsink on a running Duron 800. I didn't have a temp sensor installed, so I don't know exactly how hot it was, but it was hot enough to burn 3 lines on my index finger from the fins of the heatsink. And that was with a fan running.

it never fails ... personally i'm just amazed that the human race survived this long. it's amazing to me how many stupid things people do "out of curiosity". "out of curiosity, let's see what happens when we blow up this a-bomb" - Robert Openheimer, Manhattan Project ....

 

[charlie21]

Originally posted by: joecool

it never fails ... personally i'm just amazed that the human race survived this long. it's amazing to me how many stupid things people do "out of curiosity". "out of curiosity, let's see what happens when we blow up this a-bomb" - Robert Openheimer, Manhattan Project ....

Like you've never done something like that...

Must.... touch... heatsink....

 

[McMadman]

The fan on my heatsink failed at one point. According to MBM (external sensor under the socket) my highest temp was around 120C I'm quite amazed that it lived (athlon 1900+ running at 1200) I'm sure that if it was at the proper 133fsb the temps would have been even higher.

 

[digitalman]

here is a somewhat related story. when it first came out, the company i worked for decided we would build a new server using the new AMD MPs. we got the tyan 2462 board and 2 1200mp cpus for it. for some reason the bios kept popping up that the cpus were 1000's instead of 1200s. No problem, i'll just look the manual over and figure out which jumper needs to be moved to fix the clock cycle. meanwhile my dumb@ss colleage decides to physically verify that these are 1200mp and not just 1000's. so he pops the heatsinks off and reads the info off the chip. the problem is he never told me that he did this. I decided to upgrade the bios before changing the jumpers, so when i went to update the bios, i was surprised to learn that i just fried two cpus. while my supervisor wasn't thrilled that i didn't check the board, even though we both awknowledged that there was no way i could have known about this situation. On the other hand, he was pissed at my colleage.

 

[Matt2]

I burned my hand on the iron once.

 

[buleyb]

A friend of mine burned his finger changing a CPU before...the moron turned it off, grounded himself, pulled the HSF, pulled the socket lever, and tryed to pinch the friggin' die to pick it up. I swear he lost his fingerprints and left burned flesh on the CPU....the best thing, he didn't understand right away why his being grounded wouldn't protect him from that

 

[SleepyGreggy]

Smoking dope makes you forgetful.

 

[Texun]

It happens. I almost toasted my XP2400 a couple of months ago. I also pride myself in putting systems together to work and run stable. I spend a lot of time making sure I have the right parts and that they all go together perfectly - but I screwed up once and the board saved my butt.

I swapped fans on the SLK800 and made the necessary 4-pin connection. The problem was with the new connector; it didn't fit as tight as it should have and it worked out while I was closing my case. Booted up and the PC ran for about 15 minutes before it shut down. Had my thermal shutdown set to 60C which was safe enough. Just real glad I took the time to enable that on the original boot up.

 

[Vonkhan]

Didnt installed a Zalman properly on my P4 2.8 @ 3.4

It wasnt even making proper contact with the cpu

Ran prime95 and memtest all night long

Ran 2dmark03 over and over while trying to tweak my system

temp hovered at 48C idle and 58C under load

thot it was high but not that bad ... i discovered my mistake

now, 42C idle and 54C under load

Zalman rules

 

[TheInvincibleMustard]

Had an Athlon 1100MHz with stock HSF ... would occassionally get seemingly random reboots when playing games or running screensaver (go figure) ... updated drivers, reinstalled, reformatted, changed the video card, RAM ... nothing helped (the mobo didn't have any temp monitoring)

Finally figured that it was the powersupply, so I decided to bring over my 450W (not Athlon-approved, doesn't have the suction over the top of the CPU) ... turns out that the CPU fan died and the computer was literally locking because the CPU overheated ... it was random because the PSU fan was drawing just enough air over the HS to keep it running sometimes ... the CPU fan was replaced and it works perfectly fine now, so no damage as a result! I consider myself pretty lucky that it didn't fry itself, since those early Athlons run pretty d*mn hot ...

 

[vaporize]

too bad you didnt electrocute him

 

[Actaeon]

I remember one day I was in a rush to go to school, I did something to the computer, so it was off, but I wanted my computer to run SETI while I was away. So I turned on my computer, made sure it booted into windows and everything. Came back later in the day, my computer was locked up, I looked inside the case, and realized the fan wasn't running. The power was still on though, so it was running for about 6-7 hours with no flowing air! Keep in mind, this was a super crappy aluminum heatsink. At first, I thought I fried the thing... luckily it was okay after I plugged the fan back in, and let it cool down a little. It booted up just fine, and ran well ever since.

 

[RaiderJ]

Originally posted by: charlie21
Out of curosity one time, I touched a heatsink on a running Duron 800. I didn't have a temp sensor installed, so I don't know exactly how hot it was, but it was hot enough to burn 3 lines on my index finger from the fins of the heatsink. And that was with a fan running.

Here's your sign!