Are you old enough to remember Pentium 4?

A.N.T.

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Femtoamp- Volt- and Tape- nut.
#1
Had a bit of a disaster today with one of my workhorse computers, a very old (for a computer, that is) Compaq Presario, serving as the main measuring station, connected to a lot of various bits of measuring equipment with GPIB. This machine is used for measuring my test cassettes, metrology stuff and some work stuff as well.

Anyway, it started to overheat, even a smallest operation was sending the processor fan to the max rev, quite noisy and very disturbing, as usually this kind of symptom means a potentially serious trouble if left unattended. OK, I thought, this is the usual disease of old comps, a processor heatsink gets clogged with dust, nothing that a can of compressed air won't cure. Took the comp out, open the cover, sure enough, plenty of dust. Removed the heatsink with fun , only to discover, to my horror and disbelieve, that the plastic frame holding the heatsink is broken into three bits and the heatsink was barely touching the surface of the processor. What to do?! I need this comp operational, was hoping for a downtime of an hour at most.

One of my favourite quotations is "Engineering is the art of making what you need out of things you can get". I quickly realised that just gluing the plastic bits together won't work well (especially done in a hurry). I've glued the frame anyway and looked around the lab to find something to reinforce it. The results are on the photos. The metal bits cut from some scrap stainless steel plates with suitable size holes, plus four M2.5 screws to replace plastic inserts and now this frame may hold for a few more years!

:cool:

Cheers

Alex
 

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20tajk7

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You never have too much tapedecks ^^
#3
Well done job Alex.
These old Compaq computers are almost unbreakable, I still have a pair of portables, one has 3.11 the good times when m$ os wasn't a spyware.
 

MarkWComer

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#4
Three cheers for your ingenuity!
Excellent fix, looks stronger than the original bracket.

Do I remember Pentium 4…
My first was an 8086 with an 8087 math co- processor, I later installed a 20MB hard drive that plugged into a card slot. Tandy 1000, was the top of the Radio Shack lineup.

Didn’t get into Mac until the 68030 (Motorola chip), but the first one I paid for was the Power Mac 7100 (Power PC chip).

Yup, I’m a fuggin’ old dude…
 
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A.N.T.

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Femtoamp- Volt- and Tape- nut.
#6
Hmm... I've worked with (IIRC) the PDP-11 in about 1984-85 and with some really old valve-based Soviet computers when I was a student. My son has started his computer career at the age of three, playing Captain Comic on a PC XT at my workplace. He graduated in Computer Sciences and now runs his own software business. Before that he was in the top 16 in the world playing Quake III . I've accompanied him to the World Cybergames in South Korea in 2002 as he was not yet 18 at the time.

Cheers

Alex

P.S. - I've run OS/2 for many years at home 24/7, even now I have an old machine which would boot OS/2 with many useful programs.
 
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mr_rye89

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#9
Ah P4 space heaters, those ran hot! Surprised it took this long to cook that plastic. I've got a 386 tower that might be for sale soon, or I may just give it away. I remember using Windows 3.1 when I was like 4 or 5 so I've been at it for a while.....
 

Gepetto

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#12
The funny thing about hard drives... back when those IBM XT PC sized 10 & 20 MB models came out, the 'old guys' back then were still wrenching on the drives that were the size of dishwashers.
I was in an 'old guy' design team designing those 14" beasts Tony... :)
 

VSAT88

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Like my BlueTooth ?
#13
Had a bit of a disaster today with one of my workhorse computers, a very old (for a computer, that is) Compaq Presario, serving as the main measuring station, connected to a lot of various bits of measuring equipment with GPIB. This machine is used for measuring my test cassettes, metrology stuff and some work stuff as well.

Anyway, it started to overheat, even a smallest operation was sending the processor fun to the max rev, quite noisy and very disturbing, as usually this kind of symptom means a potentially serious trouble if left unattended. OK, I thought, this is the usual disease of old comps, a processor heatsink gets clogged with dust, nothing that a can of compressed air won't cure. Took the comp out, open the cover, sure enough, plenty of dust. Removed the heatsink with fun , only to discover, to my horror and disbelieve, that the plastic frame holding the heatsink is broken into three bits and the heatsink was barely touching the surface of the processor. What to do?! I need this comp operational, was hoping for a downtime of an hour at most.

One of my favourite quotations is "Engineering is the art of making what you need out of things you can get". I quickly realised that just gluing the plastic bits together won't work well (especially done in a hurry). I've glued the frame anyway and looked around the lab to find something to reinforce it. The results are on the photos. The metal bits cut from some scrap stainless steel plates with suitable size holes, plus four M2.5 screws to replace plastic inserts and now this frame may hold for a few more years!

:cool:

Cheers

Alex
Shoot man that repair is gonna last forever !
 

VSAT88

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#14
I remember using ole 3.1 win. back when we had those big ole brick IBM laptops to enter VSAT parameters. I did not know win. from any other OS. It was all foreign to me. We just hooked it up, turned it all on, clicked on the program and entered in what we were told to from the hub in Germantown or Mclean and hoped for the best. Many times scratching our ass at a dealership or station waiting for the correct parameters... The hub is never wrong...right ? I was in my late 20's then. Damn how things have changed.
 

vince666

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#17
We always remember our first... :)
of course, we do.

my first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum i had got in 1984 at 11yrs old...
and it's still here in nicely working shape (well, i recapped it recently)

I've used my Spectrum just everyday until about 1990-91... not only to play games, but also for some basic programming, utilities, word processor, and i remember i used something similar to a paint software, mostly to print cassette covers with that printer with thermal paper (which still works, as well).

about Pentium 4....
isn't it the latest/current model?
here, i am still running just Pentium 4 based computers for both my "audio measurements" PC and for my DAW for music production. :D
 
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