Zipppy, The computer repair man.

"Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy" (zipppyart) 02/27/2015 at 18:34 • Filed to: Computers

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I sorted out my friend's new-to him computer, had lots of caked in dust and no thermal paste.

Managed to clear the fan of dust and it runs fine now without overheating.

JGrabowMSt > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 02/27/2015 at 18:54

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Those HP Pavilions are crap. AMD inside? I absolutely despise the wiring jobs in those computers. There are so many better ways.

Looks like the original hard drive as well. Should think about replacing that soon, considering the machine is going on 8-10 years old probably.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > JGrabowMSt 02/27/2015 at 18:56

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he's got that all planned. He got this for free from another friend.

treesmakewater > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 02/27/2015 at 19:04

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no thermal paste? Not even a powdered residue?

JGrabowMSt > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 02/27/2015 at 19:05

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Do you know what his upgrade plan includes? The power supplies in those is a notorious weak point for them. I'm partially amazed that Bestec unit is still functioning. If I had a dollar for every Bestec unit I've replaced, I'd be living in the south of France right now.

New RAM, new hard drive, new PSU. Should keep that machine running for a while longer for basic tasks no problem.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > treesmakewater 02/27/2015 at 19:05

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nothing. All I heard was a faint crack and the heatsink and CPU were bone dry.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > JGrabowMSt 02/27/2015 at 19:12

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he's making a new PC out of it, unsure of parts though, so he's asking me for advice.

I would love to make a "sleeper" rig out of it with a radiator and some other mods.

RAM is currently maxed out at 3 GB DDR2, the Athlon 5000+ is archaic. I also wouldn't trust that PSU to save my life, all while it thankfully wasn't as dusty as the CPU heatsink.

JGrabowMSt > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 02/27/2015 at 19:19

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If you want to go that route, use an ITX motherboard (it should be totally fine), paired with some monster GPU. A good 550W power supply would be totally great, and you can pair like a 1TB WD Blue drive with a 240GB SSD, and then toss in a bluray drive, and it'll be a real sleeper.

It'll just fit together easier than if you try to find a mATX motherboard to squeeze into that. The clearance on the bottom of the case is really low, so some motherboards don't fit in correctly.

The case is pretty shallow however, so you'd have to use something like the Xigmatek Gaia SD1283, maybe, not sure if that would fit quite though. There are also 80mm and 92mm tower coolers that would fit and for an i3 or i5, should be more than adequate. For some of the lower series i7s they would also work (like the older i7 2600S).

At least that's what I would consider doing. But I work in a computer shop (per diem) now that I have a new job, so I'm used to doing all sorts of crazy things.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > JGrabowMSt 02/27/2015 at 19:51

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I'll look into options for what motherboard to get. He also wants to keep costs down.

JGrabowMSt > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 02/27/2015 at 20:17

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Could be done for about $300 to $400 or so, easily using the existing case and just shopping around. There are plenty of $80-$100 motherboards that are very good, plenty of $150-$180 CPUs and $140 GPUs that will be a massive upgrade. Prices seem to be down a bit comparatively lately, so your friend should try to do things soon. Prices tend to go up spring/summer and go down a bit fall/winter.

treesmakewater > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 02/28/2015 at 19:35

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0.o, that's odd

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > treesmakewater 02/28/2015 at 20:39

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my guess is that it somehow evaporated, or mixed in with the dust over time.