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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