With a good fine tip soldering iron, your board should be repairable. Of course it's not economic to do so if you have to pay someone else to do it :).
I've soldered a bit over the years, even on some big multi-layer boards. But removing power supply capacitors attached to heavy traces on a board right next to very fine traces exceeds my known ability. I did not want to take a chance on losing the board to my ineptness. Buying a fully suitable iron would have cost at least half the pro's fee.
So I chose to have a pro rework my board. It was expensive, but saved me the trouble of reinstalling all my applications (I had a RAIDed boot drive I did not think would make the transition to a system with a new motherboard).
The next act was--a few months later my RAIDed boot drive failed hard. So I've built a new Q6600 system in the ashes of the old. And yes, I'm reinstalling most of my applications (the simple ones without registry fiddles work from my backup copy). I'll be offering a heavily used Asus P4B533-E for sale on eBay, with various other parts real soon now.
... removing power supply capacitors attached to heavy traces on a board right next to very fine traces exceeds my known ability.
It looks harder than it actually is so I'd be confident that you are selling yourself short :).
I clamp the motherboard vertically so I can grab the cap in one hand whilst touching the stub of the cap lead with the iron tip. By jumping between the two lead stubs with the iron and rocking the cap at the same time with my fingers, it comes out quite easily, even when bunched together as in your image. The hardest bit is to remove the solder from the holes. Try as I may, I just can't get a solder sucker to work, and I'm uncomfortable with applying direct heat to the mobo. So my solution was to drill out the remaining solder with a pen sized hand drill and fine wire bits. It seems to work remarkably well particularly as most holes have a concave surface to the residual solder which guides the bit tip very nicely. A nice magnifying glass makes it very easy to be sure I'm drilling in just the right spot.
The first time I tried drilling, I probably took 5 minutes to drill a hole very gingerly with a lot of checking to make sure I was going straight. With a bit of practice I can now drill the holes in about 30 seconds :). I haven't even broken a bit yet. They must be tougher than they look :).
Quote:
Buying a fully suitable iron would have cost at least half the pro's fee.
Yes indeed. I was lucky enough to already own a very nice Weller soldering Station which works very well.
Quote:
I'll be offering a heavily used Asus P4B533-E for sale on eBay, with various other parts real soon now.
Good luck with your sales. I'm always amazed to see how many people are prepared to pay almost new prices sometimes for gear that is often well used and sometimes even described as having some sort of problem.
Haha...
I bought E 4400 at E 4300's price!
Now my 4400 is running overclocked at 3000 MHz 61 ℃.
I am afraid that overclocking at 3500 MHz will do harm to my cpu, what's your idea? Which temperature is just suitable for my CPU?
Hello everyone!I'm Zhang Chi from China.I am 16 and I am a middle school student.And I love science. I want to be a scientist in the future!
Haha...
I bought E 4400 at E 4300's price!
Now my 4400 is running overclocked at 3000 MHz 61 ℃.
I am afraid that overclocking at 3500 MHz will do harm to my cpu, what's your idea? Which temperature is just suitable for my CPU?
Way to go there Zhang! Nice purchase and overclock, a full 1 GHz...sweet!
Right now I'd say that 61C is about as high as you safely should go, if you still want to go faster I would recommend getting some after market cooling (I'm assuming you're using the stock heatsink). I'm partial to the Termaltake Big Typhoon, but it is now a few years old so someone might have something better to suggest.
Are you testing for stability? Prime95 and Orthos are both great programs to stress test your CPU, and coretemp is an excellent program for monitoring core temperatures.
Once again nice o/c!!
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. - Richard Feynman
Haha...
I bought E 4400 at E 4300's price!
Now my 4400 is running overclocked at 3000 MHz 61 ℃.
I am afraid that overclocking at 3500 MHz will do harm to my cpu, what's your idea? Which temperature is just suitable for my CPU?
Congrats with new system, nice overclock for that temp on stock cooler, what vcore are you using? For better cooling i would recommend Tuniq Tower 120. Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme is better but also more expensive (fan not included).
Now my 4400 is running overclocked at 3000 MHz 61 ℃.
...
what's your idea? Which temperature is just suitable for my CPU?
Temperature, Intel says 73.3c, staying a bit below could be wise.
An awkward point is that Intel's temperature spec of 73.3 is for the center of the heat spreader--on the outside. You can't actually get that measurement in your system. The internal DTS measurements are locations on the die, better correlated with real performance and stress, and actually hotter than the location Intel specs under load.
Last but not least, the DTS values reported by aps such as CoreTemp are subject to error offsets on specific parts. You may find it educational to try to get the CPU as close to ambient as you can (say by running a large room fan a foot away from the PC case with a side panel taken off and zero power on the system for a quarter-hour, then booting and going to a near-zero CPU use state as quickly as possible.
Doing this on my two modern systems (a Q6600 and an E6600) convinced me that there were offset errors of several degrees between them for a sensor on the board which gets reported as "Processor". This despite the fact that it was the same make and model of motherboard. There were even larger error offsets for the DTS-based numbers, which convinced me that the common wisdom on many OC forums as to the "real" reference value with respect to which the reported DTS value is computed was wrong for the Q6600. (in other words, I think Speedfan is closer to the truth for Q6600 B3 stepping than is Coretemp--there is a 15C offset because of this issue).
Anyway, your 61, assuming it is DTS based, is no threat of immediate harm to the processor. Even if it is a motherboard "processor" sensor value, you are not going to get quick failure.
However, long-term, you are raising the likelihood of failure, for each increment of temperature _and_ CPU voltage. That is just physics.
(disclosure: I worked for over twenty years for a large semiconductor manufacturer, and four of those years I was employed by the Reliability organization)
Are you testing for stability? Prime95 and Orthos are both great programs to stress test your CPU, and coretemp is an excellent program for monitoring core temperatures.
I've tested my CPU, but not using Prime95 or Orthos. I used Spuer Pi. It did pretty well. Now temperature is down to 55 C,still overlocked to 3000MHz.
And a question:
How high can E 4400 overlock to? I 've tried to overlock to 3500MHz. Temperature reaches 65 C.
Hello everyone!I'm Zhang Chi from China.I am 16 and I am a middle school student.And I love science. I want to be a scientist in the future!
Super-PI is no good for stabilty test, and it uses only one core, will not stress the CPU much. Try Orthos, if it fails there your overclock is bad. Try both small FFTs and blend, small FFTs will not catch memory errors.
How high CPUs will clock varies a lot, its pretty much the luck of the draw, some cant do more than ~3GHz on stock cooling and others cant do much at all on any cooling because of FSB limitations.
I've tested my CPU, but not using Prime95 or Orthos.
Sorry, but you haven't really tested your overclock. You need to run one of the specified programs for at least 12 hours without error (preferably longer) to be reasonably sure that your machine is stable. Even then there is still a small risk that your machine is not absolutely stable. Super PI is just a performance metric and NOT a stability checker :).
Quote:
How high can E 4400 overlock to?
How long is a piece of string? :).
It varies from CPU to CPU and also depends on many other conditions. Only you have a hope of even approximately answering that question for your particular bit of silicon. One of the golden rules of overclocking is "Don't take shortcuts" ie don't be in a big hurry and make big jumps. Going from 3000 to 3500 is too big for a single junp.
Every time you must take a small step and test for stability.
If you are to be successful, you need to read up on the well documented techniques that the experts use. Just use google and you will find a lot of useful information. If you wish to educate yourself about overclocking, there are many forums dedicated to just that. It's not really appropriate here though :).
...in other words, I think Speedfan is closer to the truth for Q6600 B3 stepping than is Coretemp--there is a 15C offset because of this issue
I've gotten into many a discussions on OC forums on this topic, and have come to the opposite conclusion (with respect).
I started typing up a response, but then realized a post I wrote on another forum basically summarizes my opinion and explains it as best I can: http://www.overclock.net/2405987-post25.html
I have no computer industry experience, and have come to this conclusion through my readings from Intel data sheets and other info on the net. I fully realize I could be wrong and am curious to how you have come to your conclusion.
Quote:
I've tested my CPU, but not using Prime95 or Orthos. I used Spuer Pi. It did pretty well. Now temperature is down to 55 C,still overlocked to 3000MHz.
And a question:
How high can E 4400 overlock to? I 've tried to overlock to 3500MHz. Temperature reaches 65 C.
IMHO SuperPi is not enough to fully stress test a CPU, mainly because it doesn't run for a long period of time. I can run SuperPi 32M at 3906 MHz successfully, but it would fail Prime95 or Orthos (a multithreaded version of Prime95 suited for multicore CPUs) within minutes or even seconds.
With a DC project like E@H, where your computer will be running at 100% CPU load for hours...days...weeks...months...years, having a overclocked system that is fully stable is crucial. No one like to loose a WU after 15 hours of crunch time because of an unstable overclock. So I highly recommend running Orthos for at least 8 hours and ideally even more. It will generate much more heat than SuperPi and a few degrees C more than BOINC, so it is a good test of how hot your CPU will get on a hot day.
I believe "small FFT's" is generally regarded as the best test to run.
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. - Richard Feynman
RE: With a good fine tip
)
I've soldered a bit over the years, even on some big multi-layer boards. But removing power supply capacitors attached to heavy traces on a board right next to very fine traces exceeds my known ability. I did not want to take a chance on losing the board to my ineptness. Buying a fully suitable iron would have cost at least half the pro's fee.
So I chose to have a pro rework my board. It was expensive, but saved me the trouble of reinstalling all my applications (I had a RAIDed boot drive I did not think would make the transition to a system with a new motherboard).
The next act was--a few months later my RAIDed boot drive failed hard. So I've built a new Q6600 system in the ashes of the old. And yes, I'm reinstalling most of my applications (the simple ones without registry fiddles work from my backup copy). I'll be offering a heavily used Asus P4B533-E for sale on eBay, with various other parts real soon now.
RE: ... removing power
)
It looks harder than it actually is so I'd be confident that you are selling yourself short :).
I clamp the motherboard vertically so I can grab the cap in one hand whilst touching the stub of the cap lead with the iron tip. By jumping between the two lead stubs with the iron and rocking the cap at the same time with my fingers, it comes out quite easily, even when bunched together as in your image. The hardest bit is to remove the solder from the holes. Try as I may, I just can't get a solder sucker to work, and I'm uncomfortable with applying direct heat to the mobo. So my solution was to drill out the remaining solder with a pen sized hand drill and fine wire bits. It seems to work remarkably well particularly as most holes have a concave surface to the residual solder which guides the bit tip very nicely. A nice magnifying glass makes it very easy to be sure I'm drilling in just the right spot.
The first time I tried drilling, I probably took 5 minutes to drill a hole very gingerly with a lot of checking to make sure I was going straight. With a bit of practice I can now drill the holes in about 30 seconds :). I haven't even broken a bit yet. They must be tougher than they look :).
Yes indeed. I was lucky enough to already own a very nice Weller soldering Station which works very well.
Good luck with your sales. I'm always amazed to see how many people are prepared to pay almost new prices sometimes for gear that is often well used and sometimes even described as having some sort of problem.
Cheers,
Gary.
Haha... I bought E 4400 at E
)
Haha...
I bought E 4400 at E 4300's price!
Now my 4400 is running overclocked at 3000 MHz 61 ℃.
I am afraid that overclocking at 3500 MHz will do harm to my cpu, what's your idea? Which temperature is just suitable for my CPU?
Hello everyone!I'm Zhang Chi from China.I am 16 and I am a middle school student.And I love science. I want to be a scientist in the future!
RE: Haha... I bought E 4400
)
Way to go there Zhang! Nice purchase and overclock, a full 1 GHz...sweet!
Right now I'd say that 61C is about as high as you safely should go, if you still want to go faster I would recommend getting some after market cooling (I'm assuming you're using the stock heatsink). I'm partial to the Termaltake Big Typhoon, but it is now a few years old so someone might have something better to suggest.
Are you testing for stability? Prime95 and Orthos are both great programs to stress test your CPU, and coretemp is an excellent program for monitoring core temperatures.
Once again nice o/c!!
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. - Richard Feynman
RE: Haha... I bought E 4400
)
Temperature, Intel says 73.3c, staying a bit below could be wise.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLA98
Congrats with new system, nice overclock for that temp on stock cooler, what vcore are you using? For better cooling i would recommend Tuniq Tower 120. Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme is better but also more expensive (fan not included).
Team Philippines
RE: RE: Now my 4400 is
)
An awkward point is that Intel's temperature spec of 73.3 is for the center of the heat spreader--on the outside. You can't actually get that measurement in your system. The internal DTS measurements are locations on the die, better correlated with real performance and stress, and actually hotter than the location Intel specs under load.
Last but not least, the DTS values reported by aps such as CoreTemp are subject to error offsets on specific parts. You may find it educational to try to get the CPU as close to ambient as you can (say by running a large room fan a foot away from the PC case with a side panel taken off and zero power on the system for a quarter-hour, then booting and going to a near-zero CPU use state as quickly as possible.
Doing this on my two modern systems (a Q6600 and an E6600) convinced me that there were offset errors of several degrees between them for a sensor on the board which gets reported as "Processor". This despite the fact that it was the same make and model of motherboard. There were even larger error offsets for the DTS-based numbers, which convinced me that the common wisdom on many OC forums as to the "real" reference value with respect to which the reported DTS value is computed was wrong for the Q6600. (in other words, I think Speedfan is closer to the truth for Q6600 B3 stepping than is Coretemp--there is a 15C offset because of this issue).
Anyway, your 61, assuming it is DTS based, is no threat of immediate harm to the processor. Even if it is a motherboard "processor" sensor value, you are not going to get quick failure.
However, long-term, you are raising the likelihood of failure, for each increment of temperature _and_ CPU voltage. That is just physics.
(disclosure: I worked for over twenty years for a large semiconductor manufacturer, and four of those years I was employed by the Reliability organization)
RE: Are you testing for
)
I've tested my CPU, but not using Prime95 or Orthos. I used Spuer Pi. It did pretty well. Now temperature is down to 55 C,still overlocked to 3000MHz.
And a question:
How high can E 4400 overlock to? I 've tried to overlock to 3500MHz. Temperature reaches 65 C.
Hello everyone!I'm Zhang Chi from China.I am 16 and I am a middle school student.And I love science. I want to be a scientist in the future!
Super-PI is no good for
)
Super-PI is no good for stabilty test, and it uses only one core, will not stress the CPU much. Try Orthos, if it fails there your overclock is bad. Try both small FFTs and blend, small FFTs will not catch memory errors.
How high CPUs will clock varies a lot, its pretty much the luck of the draw, some cant do more than ~3GHz on stock cooling and others cant do much at all on any cooling because of FSB limitations.
Team Philippines
RE: I've tested my CPU, but
)
Sorry, but you haven't really tested your overclock. You need to run one of the specified programs for at least 12 hours without error (preferably longer) to be reasonably sure that your machine is stable. Even then there is still a small risk that your machine is not absolutely stable. Super PI is just a performance metric and NOT a stability checker :).
How long is a piece of string? :).
It varies from CPU to CPU and also depends on many other conditions. Only you have a hope of even approximately answering that question for your particular bit of silicon. One of the golden rules of overclocking is "Don't take shortcuts" ie don't be in a big hurry and make big jumps. Going from 3000 to 3500 is too big for a single junp.
Every time you must take a small step and test for stability.
If you are to be successful, you need to read up on the well documented techniques that the experts use. Just use google and you will find a lot of useful information. If you wish to educate yourself about overclocking, there are many forums dedicated to just that. It's not really appropriate here though :).
Cheers,
Gary.
RE: ...in other words, I
)
I've gotten into many a discussions on OC forums on this topic, and have come to the opposite conclusion (with respect).
I started typing up a response, but then realized a post I wrote on another forum basically summarizes my opinion and explains it as best I can: http://www.overclock.net/2405987-post25.html
I have no computer industry experience, and have come to this conclusion through my readings from Intel data sheets and other info on the net. I fully realize I could be wrong and am curious to how you have come to your conclusion.
IMHO SuperPi is not enough to fully stress test a CPU, mainly because it doesn't run for a long period of time. I can run SuperPi 32M at 3906 MHz successfully, but it would fail Prime95 or Orthos (a multithreaded version of Prime95 suited for multicore CPUs) within minutes or even seconds.
With a DC project like E@H, where your computer will be running at 100% CPU load for hours...days...weeks...months...years, having a overclocked system that is fully stable is crucial. No one like to loose a WU after 15 hours of crunch time because of an unstable overclock. So I highly recommend running Orthos for at least 8 hours and ideally even more. It will generate much more heat than SuperPi and a few degrees C more than BOINC, so it is a good test of how hot your CPU will get on a hot day.
Here is a link to download Orthos stress tester : http://www.overclock.net/attachments/downloads/36840-orthos-v20060420-orthos_exe_20060420.zip?d=1165737486
I believe "small FFT's" is generally regarded as the best test to run.
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. - Richard Feynman