SPCR

I am the guy that wrote about the Zalman vs. Nexus fan. I received the Zalman fan today and put it in. While I had everything apart I read up on the pencil unlocking trick and decided to try it. That way I figured I could play with underclocking if it seemed necessary. Anyway, I put everything back together, tucked all the wires away beautifully, and went for the big startup. All the fans and lights and hard drive started up, but nothing was on the monitor. I tried reseating the video card twice and rechecked that I had everything hooked up the way it was 2 hours earlier when it worked perfectly.......



Yeah, dead pc


Reply from Kevin, moved by Mod:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article37-page1.html


I was operating under the impression that if I just did the pencil part now, settings would remain stock but I could adjust them later without taking everything apart again. Is this even definitely the problem. Could I have just static electric-ed the motherboard or something?

Greetings Kevin,

What's the "pencil unlocking trick"?

Hi Kevin,

Are this an Athlon CPU that has a problem now? (That is where I heard of the "pencil" trick.)

If so, some of the early ones could be unlocked just connecting across a laser cut, but later ones, the laser cut had a trace below it, and so the area first needed to be sealed so that your pencil trace would not short out to the trace in the layer below the one you intend to connect.

Yes, the CPU is a regular Athlon, not xp or any of the later ones. It is 1.3 GHz. I think those closed out at 1.4. Anyway, I tried to add a post to this last night but that didn't work out so good. Here is more info:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article102-page1.html[url]

This is the article that gave me the idea.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/t-bird.php[url]

This is one of the articles that shows the steps.

I wish I wouldn't have messed with this. I probably would be enjoying my new fan and shopping for a quiet hard drive. But I guess that I assumed that I could do the pencil part while I had everything apart and have the option of underclocking later if I wanted to go a level higher in terms of quiet or low power. But I guess that is what everyone thinks after something goes wrong.

Here are my thoughts moving forward:

1. How do I know I didn't bang some little divot off the motherboard or static electric it or something?

2. Confession #2. The holes for the Zalman weren't drilled. But there were little round isolated metal circles that lined up perfectly. I assumed it was the kind of deal where the holes are on all the mobos, but they are drilled on enthusist, high-end boards, but just marked on the boards that were destined for HP (These are all parts from the old Pavilion)
So I drilled them. I stayed in the little metal circles and I made sure all the shavings were off. But yeah, I drilled holes in the motherboard. When I was doing it I figured everyone probably goes through this but maybe that was another big red flag that I ignored.

3. I was panicking, because I could probably send the Zalman back, but I wouldn' have bought the Sonata II case or memory for this old beast if I had known that I would be starting from scratch. Then I remembered my brother has an old Gateway that I think had a 1.1 GHz Athlon in it. He has asked me several times if I want it for parts so I took him up on it. If I just fouled up the CPU I could just swap that.

4. I don't suppose that I could just use the eraser from the pencil to remove the marks over the bridges? Didn't really think so

5. If I swap the CPU I'm just out time and another little tube of thermal grease. If that doesn't work I could use his old mobo too. But I think it used SDRAM and mine uses DDR, so the memory would be going to waste. Are there any tests I can try to see what I broke? Any reset buttons?
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Hello Kevin,

You DRILLED HOLES IN YOUR MOTHERBOARD?!

I don't think there is any question as to why it won't boot, now... You sir, need to go motherboard shopping! Look for one that will fit the Zalman HSF -- it is a good cooler.

I must agree that drilling holes in a motherboard is a bit of a daft thing to do, but if they were just filled with solder and you didn't break the through-hole plating then you might not have caused any damage by doing it.

Well, although drilling holes into mobo belongs usually to 1st April stories, your motherboard could be alive - if these soldered circles were real placeholders for holes. I think mobo makers do not create different layouts for minor modifications of motherboards - it would cost more that just not drilling holes into same mobo.

First erase your unlocking strikes from CPU - carefully and gently.

Then perform usual old motherboard healing procedure (described many times here in SPCR) (I suppoce you have speaker connected to mobo).

1. Disconnect PC from mains power
2. Disconnect everything (HDD cables, PCI/VGA cards, RAM) from mobo except CPU, CPU cooler, other coolers, PSU cables and front panel cables
3. Clear CMOS using jumper (exact procedure is written in mobo manual)
4. Turn PC on - it should start issue long beeps.

If it beeps, then everything is probably OK and you can start adding components (disconnect power in between).
If it doesn't beep, but you have speaker connected, then most probably motherboard is dead. CPU could be dead, but this happens very rarely.

If you have no speaker connected, but PC seems to keep running, then add other components - maybe helps.

-- edit --
I forgot - while erasing CPU "unlocker", remove all excess thermal paste too - I've seen cases, when conductive thermal paste has shorted CPU connectors and PC could not start.

The holes that I drilled: The stock cooler had a metal clip that went horizontally and attached to the plastic surrounding the CPU

The Zalman cooler had brackets that lined up vertically above and below the CPU (when the case up upright)

Above and below the CPU were metal circles that were not attached to any of the little lines that make up the arteries runnings through the circuit board.

These circle resembled the metal rings that make up each hole in the motherboard, with the exception of there being no hole.

These circles were perfectly laid out to fit the zalman cooler, and the instructions said I would find holes there.

I opened the holes careful not to break through the metal circle and just large enough for the screws that secure the Zalman brackets.

At the moment I just wanted to clarify the holes but I have some other stuff to do before I try anything else. I'll be back

Kevin wrote:...metal circles that were not attached to any of the little lines that make up the arteries runnings through the circuit board...

Even if there are no tracks connected to them on the surface, there are layers inside that could be connected unseen.

Umm, yeah, I guess the holes were the problem. I got no beeps or nothing, no extra paste. When I am working on a car or the house or at work and I come across that sort of thing it is the right decision to use whats there, to make the modification. I guess I will do some shopping, and this time ask questions first, drill later.

At least we all got a laugh out of it

Mr Evil wrote:

Kevin wrote:...metal circles that were not attached to any of the little lines that make up the arteries runnings through the circuit board...

Even if there are no tracks connected to them on the surface, there are layers inside that could be connected unseen.

Yes, but it would be kind of daft from pcb design point of view to draw circuits through points that may be used for heatsink mounting in different board revisions. I'd rather guess that the drilling may have caused cracks in the pcb that extend some way from the actual drilled hole or that there has been some static damage caused by handling and/or usage of power tools.

Anyway, it could be possible to see the metal ends of the broken leads on the inside of the drill hole if there are any. If the hole sided are all completely metallic the hole should be safe from a mechanical point of view.

Of course, if the hole was simply filled with solder it would have been safer and easier to heat it up and either suck it away (special equipment) or gently slam the MB (extra hand possibly needed) against a table with the hole solder in melted state to clear the hole.

Yeah, I would agree with Melion--I have an older OEM for HP, made by ASUS board that has the spots marked for holes, but no holes actually drilled.

What kind of drill are we talking here, BTW? Dremel size, or something like my 18V Dewalt hammerdrill size? If you look at a full size drill in a dark room, you see LOTS of sparks inside when they run...probably a nice magnetic field or static charge from those things.

Definitely start with cleaning the CPU, use a bare minimum of the thermal paste...wait--A ZALMAN for socket-A requiring through board mounting? Like the 7000 maybe? You may also have a problem with it not putting enough pressure on, I had the exact problem (though I *didn't* DRILL ANY HOLES ). If you at least get to the BIOS and temp monitoring you can test for this by poking at the heatsink--temps should remain constant and it shouldn't budge. I had to put a little more 'bend' in the tension bar running through it in my case.

Good luck.

Need pics of mangled mobo btw.

*joins crowd having weekend chuckle at Kevins expense*

<---tries to imagin explaining this to his wife "so you see honey, I need a new motherboard, because after I drilled holes in mine it didn't work anymo....."