Re: Master or Slave

attilathehun1 wrote:
Ok, that's what my question was if I had to configure something or just let the Windows XP Pro operating system recognize the drive during the initial installation. I was told today that I didn't have to do anything and it would recognize it during installation by a PC tech at PC Club. When I was at the last installation of firing up the PC to see if it would work, a snag happened. The video card is a monster, and it takes up two slots, well not 2 PCI slots, but 2 slots at the backplate. You have to take out 2 rear expansion slot covers during installation. Well, the damn card got stuck between 3 slots, don't ask me how, but it happened. I was so pissed off by that time, I just opened the trunk and tossed it in and drove to the PC Club. For $29.95 he unstuck the video card and installed it. I offered $20 bucks in cash and he said ok, but I forgot my ATM card, so I was out of luck there. I did learn how to do it, he unscrewed the backplate holder, and then unstuck the card. So for about $30 bucks I learned how to get a card unstuck. One thing though, the PC didn't fire up. He put a motherboard tester onto P1 of the power supply and it turns out the motherboard was dead. Now I've said to my friend and family members that if you bring your PC into a PC store 9 out of 10 times the tech will say you need a mobo. That's simple, I go to someone's house or business and tell them after a quick check that they need a motherboard. Great, how easy. Well I was in no position to argue and now I'm about to call newegg.com and get an RMA number or some wtf number to return this mobo. The other tech at PC Club said almost 20 % of motherboards coming out of the factory don't work. I figure it's about 10% maybe and that's pushing it. Ok, here goes; Gigabyte S-Series model # GA-EP35C-DS3R. This mobo has one IDE connector and 4 SATA connectors, 3 yellows and 1 purple. Now I realize what the setting on the jumper on the hard drives when it says master with a non ATA-compatible slave. Probably it has something to do with SATA and then a non-SATA. That's just a question that's been bugging me for 2 or 3 years everytime I see it on a hard drive about the jumper setting. Ok, lets move on. I'm fixing up my old Dell 8300 again and plugging everything back into it. I was upgrading my Dell 8300 and now this mobo problem. I figure it probably is the problem because the PC Club tech plugged his tester into motherboard power supply connector and took readings. The CPU chip was stuck onto the heatsink. I had to go out and buy a hair dryer for 10 bucks and use it on high settings hot for 20 seoncds. I first through the heatsink with attached chip into the freezer, then an hour later took it out and 20 minutes later used the hair dryer and a straight edge screwdriver and the chip came right off. Great what a little applied heat will do.
I want to know if I should use arctic silver or thermal paste. l cleaned off both pieces and now I'm ready to apply the paste. It's a stock 8300 Dell. I haven't changed the chip or heatsink. In fact, this was the first time I ever took the heatsink off. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, attilathehun1

Arctic Silver is a brand of thermal paste. What counts is using some kind
of thermal paste, as a thermal paste is a better conductor of heat, than a
thin layer of air would be. The thermal paste is there to displace air and
push the air out of the way, when the heatsink is compressed into it. An
"Oreo cookie" consisting of metal-paste-metal works better than
metal-air-metal.

I'm not familiar with PC Club and just exactly what a motherboard tester
they would be using. With a completely empty motherboard, all you can test
is that pressing the front Power button, causes the power supply to start.
You need the components plugged in (processor, memory, video card and so
on), to do a more thorough test. From your description, it is hard to say
how the technician reached that conclusion.

The defectivity rate of motherboards should not be 20%. Imagine if a company
makes 5 million motherboards per month - they'd have 1 million coming back
every month. Think how many humans it would take to handle that.

Paul
.