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!
Cheers
Alex
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!
Cheers
Alex
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