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Cooling
The Cache !
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Decapsulating
the P2 and delivering a cool breeze over your cache!
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I
got a little bored Saturday night and decided to "pull a Kyle"
on my Pentium 2-333. This was a serious leap of faith in that this
processor already does 500+ Mhz. very stable on most BX
motherboards. I really didn't have a lot of motive to try to cool my
CPU anymore because of this. However, like I said, I was in between
hardware reviews and I was bored! Idle hands make the devil's
work... At least that's what my Mother always says! :-)
One of the most prominent issues with stability of an overclocked P2
is actually the performance of the on board cache, which most often
times can't keep up with the higher end CPU cores. This chip
actually has Toshiba 225 Mhz. Synchronous SRAM Cache on the P2
module which is faster than most P2s of the '98 vintage. These parts
are set up to run pretty fast and as a result need to be cooled as
well! Intel's design doesn't really provide decent thermal
conditions for the on board cache of the P2. How do I know all this?
I took the P2 Slot 1 Cartridge apart of course! This isn't an easy
task! Don't even THINK of trying this yourself unless you know
exactly what you are doing. Unless of course you don't mind a nice
expensive P2 Coaster for your beverage after your attempt! Check
this link
at The Heat sink Guide for a quick "how to".
So here is what a P2 looks like after case removal... |
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| OK
from left to right you're looking at a P2 with the case removed and
the backing plate still attached. I have it sitting in a couple of
Slot 1 Motherboard Guides just to keep it upright. The metal and
plastic tabs at the bottom are not part of the processor. On the
left, you can see pretty clearly where the P2 makes contact with the
Heat Transfer Plate. Only the Processor Chip in the middle contacts
the plate. If you look closely at this picture you can see the SRAM
chips on either side of the CPU. They are obviously not making
contact and therefore heat is not transferring from them to the
plate. My buddy Kyle at "Da
Hard OCP"
decided he would bridge the gap with a nickel. This should work
pretty well in conducting heat to the plate. However, in order to do
this, you need to remove the plate and sandwich the nickels in
between the SRAMs and the plate with thermal grease, to do it right.
To remove the plate you need to remove the clips you see in the next
image. These actually hold together the Module Board and Heat
Transfer Plate. They are EXTREMELY difficult (although I have done
it before) to get off, so I decided to do something different but
effectlive. |
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Below are
pictures of the de-capsulated processor with Heat sink and Fans
attached.
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| I
know it is hard to see because the rig is almost totally covered in
fans! What you are seeing is another set of Dual 5000 RPM Fans
blowing air down through the plate and CPU Module Board! This
delivers a sweet, cool breeze to the SRAM chips as well as the
standard plate cooling effect of the main Heatsink and Fan combo! It
also does blow air over the CPU chip. |
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| Doing
this allowed me to get 525 Mhz. out of this great hand picked CPU
for hours on end without a single lock up! Again, if you try this
method yourself, you are on your own! I am not responsible for any
damage you may cause to your system or processor! It works really
well if you are the daring type! |
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| Keep
on clockin'! |
| -Davo |
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