Took my car in to have its brakes checked, turns out they needed to order new rotors, so I was without car today. Not having the forethought to go to Fry’s before the mechanic, I had to wait for someone to take me to Fry’s to buy thermal paste. That someone turned out to be Albert.
I put way too much on the first time, had to remove it and try again. I succeeded in lowering the operating temperature of the CPU by 10C, it runs around 70C now, which is still hot, but not blistering.
I’ll give you one guess as to whether or not that fixed my problem.
You’re right! It didn’t! Still got BSoDs when trying to install Windows. So I decided to see if I could just take the damn thing and put it in my old case, so I double checked to see if my old motherboard could support it. I went and checked and… it couldn’t. Which put up a flag in my head. If my old processor works in both, and the new one isn’t supported by the old motherboard, they might have a different front side bus speed. Yes, I checked, the new processor is supported by my current motherboard… which leads me to my next little revelation.
I came across the FAQ for my shuttle model and it gave an example of a system they used for benchmark testing. Note, the processor they used is the exact one I’m trying to put in… so I’m now certain that’s not the problem. I then noted that the memory they were using is DDR400. I currently have DDR333. You know what this means, right?
That’s right! It means another trip to Fry’s to spend more money!
At least now, if this all works, I’ll have a second processor, duplicate memory, and an old motherboard known to support both of them. I’m just a hard drive and a video card away from a second PC. Okay, technically a third PC… but the Linux machine doesn’t count. (It can’t play FFXI.)
Hopefully the mechanic calls me tomorrow morning like he expects and I can get my car back. Ironically, I’ll be spending the same amount on new brakes as I’ll probably be spending on new memory.
I also managed to watch The Village on cable just now. I totally called the ending, although not as early as I’d have liked to feel totally intellectually superior.
