Suggestions Replacing P4 CPU Heat Sink Retainer?

Sign up to freecycle & freegle and scrounge a PC that's 2 or 3x faster and doesn't have its CPU cooler falling off.

Pentium 4 Socket 478 Heatsink Retention Module $1.59:

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It's easy to think outside the box, when you have a cutting torch.

Those don't always work on Dell. Last one I worked on the bolt pattern didn't line up with the holes in the mainboard. Most dell desktop used a single 120mm fan mounted on back drawing air through a shroud encasing a heatsink of fins that was about 4 or 5 inches tall. This one was in pieces when it was given to me and part of the original retainer were missing. This was an LGA also. I did find the missing part later at a PC shop a friend owns. He said he had just had one in that the mainboard was toast. Not a great machine, hyperthreading single core 3.0 ghz Intel. Got to have at least a dual core these days.

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Live Fast Die Young, Leave A Pretty Corpse

Ahh, the luxury of unreasonable feelings of entitlement!!!

An acquaintance sent over a Thinkpad X40 a couple of weeks ago. He'd picked it up for $20 at a flea market. 1.2Ghz Pentium M, 500 Megs of RAM, 20 Gig hard drive, wireless networking, no CD drive, Win XP. He thought he had 'bricked' it trying to install Win7 from a thumb drive. After 5 minutes investigation I found the 'clover leaf' power cord was bad. I hook up a good power cord, it works, the battery even takes a charge, and send it back to him.

A week later he reports he added another Gig of RAM ($30) a new power cord ($5), and Win7 and it works wonderfully. "It's the ideal system to use at a coffee shop".

So for under $100 (a significant portion of which was for shipping) he's got something that is faster than an iPad, has a real keyboard, and can be upgraded. Not all people measure their importance by the speed of their computer.

PlainBill

Something like that would be perfect for reading my collection of e-books while sitting on the bog.

thread/

My Dell Mini 910 with 8 gig SSD runs 7 Professional perfectly :)It has an Intel Atom hyperthreading CPU that runs at 1.3 ghz and 2 gigs of DDR2 ram. I have an additional 8 gig SD card in it for storage. Cold boot time to login screen is about 30 seconds. So I'm not bashing lower performance computers. Just for some things, a dual core is needed. I upgraded my son's HT 3.0 ghz single intel to a dual core, he plays games. It increased his video frame rate from 15 fps to 30. Some of those games need at least a dual core. Myself I run a quad core AMD Phenom II 955 on an Asus M48At-E mobo with 4 gigs Corsair DDR3 FSB at 1600 MHZ. I can encode raw avi video into MPEG2 at about 200 FPS. What took hours on a single core 2.0 GHZ AMD64 now takes minutes. So again it all has its place. I still have an Asus M6Bne, 1.8 ghz 15.4 widescreen laptop from

2004 I use daily. And an Athalon T-Bird 1.0 ghz box downstairs not being used.

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Live Fast Die Young, Leave A Pretty Corpse

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all your comments!

While the cost of the plastic Pentium 4 Socket 478 Heatsink Retention Module is low ($1.59:

) I am not impressed with the design/quality of this part and would like to do a more reliable repair.

Also agree with Meat Plow "Those don't always work on Dell. Last one I worked on the bolt pattern didn't line up with the holes in the mainboard. Most dell desktop used a single 120mm fan mounted on back drawing air through a shroud encasing a heatsink of fins that was about 4 or 5 inches tall." This is the setup for the Dell Dimension

2300.

Meat Plow "This one was in pieces when it was given to me and part of the original retainer were missing." Did you ever get this PC working? If so did you get another Dell Heatsink Retention Module or repair the original one?

Ken

I don't really care. All the plastic mounts are cheap. I also don't think much of Dell motherboards.

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It's easy to think outside the box, when you have a cutting torch.

You mention two purposes where higher performance is appropriate. I'm of the opinion that few people (other than professional game developers) NEED a higher performance system. Encoding video can be a different matter. Years ago I discovered a 2.4Ghz P4 with 1 Gig of RAM could transcode a AVI file into DVD format VIRTUALLY in a matter of minutes - I started the process before going to bed, in the morning there was a DVD waiting.

Not that there is something wrong with using a high performance system for trivial purposes; Intel and AMD's bottom line would be less impressive if the only market for their high end processors was Civil Engineers designing a suspension bridge.

PlainBill

I had this same problem on a 2350 dell. I simply made new retaining clips from metal strips.works ok.

Hi Doug,

"I had this same problem on a 2350 dell. I simply made new retaining clips from metal strips.works ok."

Sounds Good!!!

Any suggestions? Also if you were going to make "new retaining clips" again, would you make any changes in either design or material?

Ken

...and a handsome lad he is too!

Most Dell mainboards were made by Intel. So you don't like Intel main boards. Or you don't like Dell's limited BIOS.

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Live Fast Die Young, Leave A Pretty Corpse

I've done a lot of home video from 8 and mini DV into DVD. Last one was with a P4 # 3.0 ghz, hyper threading and 4 gigs of ram. It took hours to encode a 20 GB raw AVI into DVD using Sony DVD Architect. I'm sorry but I don't believe you.

You are being a bit narrow minded.

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Live Fast Die Young, Leave A Pretty Corpse

Hi Ken,well on my p.c. the original retainer clips had nothing to latch on to,as the plastic `slots` on heatsink base had broken off.I made up `L` shaped brackets 25mm.by 25mm with 6mm hole drilled each end,removed 4 screws and lifted off heatsink base,slid homebrew clips under the base, refit h.sink base with the screws passing thru` the holes in the homemade clips.This now gave the original spring clamps somewhere to hook on to ! Hope you can follow this Ken ! Am not sure how to include a piccy with this post, or would have taken snap with digi.cam. Still learning here ! ! HTH doug

That's because you don't read carefully and lack comprehension.

I set up the transcoding in the evening, just before I go to bed. The task completes while I am sleeping. From my point of view, my computer was unavailable only for a few minutes.

And you allow, nay encourage, a few pieces of etched silicon to hold your sense of self esteem hostage.

PlainBill

clips"

Most frequently just plop a photo on someplace like photobucket and give = a link. Pick a place that has rules you like.

?-)

Made by Intel. or with an Intel chipset? I find too many weird problems with custom Dell motherboards, and have scrapped at least 100 computers that would only hold a custom Dell motherboard.

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It's easy to think outside the box, when you have a cutting torch.

You have two problems posting photos here. You re using google groups which doesn't access binaries newsgroups, and this isn't a binaries newsgroup.

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It's easy to think outside the box, when you have a cutting torch.