update on the dual system

[mrtristan]

Well, I had a dual cpu system, until two days ago. I changed the original heatsink and fan and apparently broke the chip in the process. Lucky for me that AMD has a 3 year warranty, right? Wrong. Basically, it's something like this. If you ever even touch the cpu or heatsink after initially installing it, the warrany is void.

The thing is, I don't think it way my fault at all. I've changed heatsink/fans in the past without any problems and I even switched the position of the working cpu to the first slot, after the first one broke. As far as I can tell, I haven't physically damaged the chip at all, neither did it seem to overheat.

Moral of the story: There is none. It just sucks to break a $150 chip.

[Greg12]

U can always lie.

[mrtristan]

Normally I wouldn't, but I am. I didn't do anything to damage the chip, as far as I can tell. I scratched up the heatsink of the damaged cpu, so I mounted it on the working processor. I'm going to send the cherry heatsink in with the broken chip and hopefully get a replacement.

I'll just tell them that the cpu mysteriously stopped working and I tried thermal grease after it already would not boot. I'll also have to forget to include the fact that I tried an aftermarket heatsink. I'm sure they'll still try to give me some kind of run around, but at least that makes my case stronger.

[Faustus]

Remember when telling a fib, keep it simple. Once many moons ago I sent in a connor HDD for replacement. Well you see the power connector had broken off after a vigorious fight trying to remove it, and thinking that it was ruined and forgetting about the insane warranty drives USED to have I tried to solder a standard powerconnector onto its place... needless to say I had never used a soldering iron before and botched job badly. I then chunked the drive. Later that night I remembered I had a warranty, but now I had solder all over it.... I clean it up best as I could and gave them a call. Told them the power connector was partially broken and over nighted it in. That next week I was out of town, when I returned I had about 3 calls from them trying to contact me, yet the next day I got a HDD in the mail, guess they got sick of not being able to contact me.

Good luck on the cpu replacement... you might want to use a shim, those XP/MP chips are very fragile.

[mrtristan]

Well, the replacement should be on the way, tomorrow. The guy that I talked to was not what I expected. I figured some bastard with an attitude was going to give me crap about the warranty, but he practically gave me the replacement processor without even hearing how it broke.

I ended up telling a little more of the truth than I planned, just because I knew he wasn't the stick up his ass type. He even told me to clean off the thermal grease thoroughly, so that there wouldn't be any question as to me being the one who broke it.

[mrtristan]

Oh, it gets worse.

So my replacement chip came in the mail, today. I scraped off the thermal pad, smeared some thermal grease on and installed the cpu. I expected to be up and running.

WRONG! I don't think that it was the cpu that broke. I know that the replacement that they sent me couldn't be broken, but I couldn't even boot up. The computer will make a series of long beeps, which is supposed to mean that the RAM isn't being recognized. I tried different slots and isolating each DIMM, but I could not boot.

I also tried switching the positions of the two processors, but that didn't work. I tried disconnecting everything from the motherboard and reconnecting, but that didn't work.

From the few times that I could even make it into the BIOS, the chips don't seem to be the problem. The temperature readings are normal. I'm at my wits end. I should have just left everything alone.

If I can't figure it out with the help of some technical support tomorrow, I'll probably have to take it in to be professionally looked at. My guess is that they're going to charge me $100 to tell my that my motherboard is fried.

We shall see what happens. Hopefully I can get the system up and running again in time to tape a show that starts on Monday.