2.3 Readying the processors

Prepare the processors? What the? Why do you have to prepare a processor? What do you need to do? One needs to ensure that the heat generated from a processor can be dissipated to some other recipient. That someplace is your heatsink and fan. To expedite this process, you’ll want to use some sort of thermal compound that helps encourage the thermal flow from the processor core to the heatsink.

In the simplest scenario, you can utilize the thermal compound that is normally found on the underside of a heatsink. Not all heatsinks come with this thermal compound attached so check before you assume it is there. In most cases this is good enough. On the other hand, you can also apply your own thermal compound such as Artic Silver III or any other thermal grease brand that is now readily available even in your local CompUSA. If you’re going to overclock the processor, then using a thermal grease compound is preferable over the layer that is already there. For this project I chose to apply my own thermal grease.

Before applying the grease, I cleaned the surfaces of both the processor and the heatsink using an alcohol prep pad. I wanted to make sure that there were as little contaminants as possible.

The Pentium III processors can be quite fragile. You can crack the surface of the processor if you do not apply the heatsink correctly so do be careful.

The Artic Silver III was applied on both the processor and on the underside of the heatsink. You want to apply some grease on the underside of the heatsink since not all heatsink surfaces are entirely smooth. They may have small cracks or creases that may not thoroughly touch the top of the processor core. You want to make sure that as much surface area is in contact between the processor and the heatsink and thus the grease will help ensure this bonding. I then used a razor blade to smooth out the thermal grease on both sides. You don’t want to over apply the thermal grease. Just make sure you have a nice smooth layer of grease that covers the surface area of the processor core.

A little dab of Artic Silver III	spread around

A closeup of a P3 1GHz Coppermine	Thermal grease on the hs

2.4 Installing the Pentium III’s and Heatsinks

Installing the two processors is a cinch to do. Every socket on the motherboard has a lever that you’ll need to raise before inserting the processor.

Sockey 370 showing its all	A closeup of one

Make sure that the processor is aligned properly into the 370 pin socket and then insert the processor. You won’t need to apply too much pressure in inserting the processor. However, you can press the processor down firmly with an equal amount of pressure all around.

Processors in the sockets

For heatsinks, I chose to go with the CoolerMaster Low Profile CI5-6C11B-02. I wanted low profile heatsinks since they looked oh so cool! Attaching the heatsinks were relatively easy. I used a flat head screwdriver to press down on the heatsink clips. These clips can be a real pain to use especially when you consider how easy it is to crack the processor core. Luckily the layout of the motherboard gives me plenty of room when attaching the heatsinks. There are some motherboards where the capacitors are so close to the sockets that installing a heatsink is nearly impossible without bending the capacitors themselves.

Heatsinks installed	Another view

2.5 Installing the RAM

Still working with the motherboard, I installed the two 256 MB PC 133 SDRAM sticks from Crucial. This motherboard only accepts up to 512MB of RAM so don’t expect to see this board used in a server environment. That is perhaps the single largest drawback to the i815 chipset.

PC133 memory installed

The board laid out

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