I’d really like to kick the idiot at Intel who designed the Core 2 Duo heatsink/fan assembly. I had to use a screwdriver to force that thing into its locked position because my thumbs weren’t enough. Why can’t they just use a backplate and screws like just about every decent third-party heatsink out there?
As for why I was fiddling with my heatsink, well, today I added a fresh layer of thermal grease to my CPU. It’s been running way too hot for quite a while now (50 degrees Celsius at idle) so I decided to finally get to the root of the problem. And of course now it’s idling at a healthy 20 C, with the temperature under load being about ten degrees higher. Given that, since the 4GB of RAM I bought over Thanksgiving was causing my CPU to overheat at load when I installed it back then, I think I should probably give it another shot (although Windows XP won’t be able to use all of it, more RAM is always good). Hopefully it fares better this time.
I also did a reformat recently, and all I have to say is that the entire process has convinced me of the obsolescence of the DVD as a backup medium. I burned something like eight single-layer DVDs trying to back up all my files, which is pretty ridiculous. I’ve been pretty sloppy with my disk management, so I guess what I need is to either create a dedicated data partition or buy a new hard disk exclusively for data. Then again that raises concerns about what happens when that disk fails…
Maybe I should set up a RAID? Heh. As if I didn’t have enough trouble holding on to my money as it is…
On another note I got my hands on Maaya Sakamoto’s newest album ã‹ãœã‚ˆã¿ (Kazeyomi) yesterday (and before you ask me where I downloaded it from, I paid for it with money, you goddamn pirate). So far, I like it more than 30minutes night flight and 夕凪ループ. It has a few singles on it that are anime-related, most notably Triangular, the first opening theme for Macross Frontier (which is a pretty great song in and of itself). The main reason I bought this album on release is because it was made with Youko Kanno’s involvement – a big plus for me since most of Maaya’s best songs were composed by Youko Kanno.
Tentative thumbs up – I’ll be listening to this a lot on my iPhone for the next few weeks to confirm that initial impression.
And now for no reason I’ll end this post with a Youtube video I capped off my laptop while I was playing Outrun 2006. No, I’m not normally this bad at the game…but I think the fact that Fraps was affecting my framerate might have had something to do with it. Not to mention the fact that I recently switched from using the keyboard to using an Xbox 360 controller to play (great controller, apart from the terrible d-pad).
… damn, I’m gonna install a video card this monday. I think it’s a nVidia based one (256MB).
Do you think I should use that thermal thing in my CPU, too?
If your CPU was manufactured within the last…five years or so, you’re probably already using it. It’s practically a necessity at this point to ensure proper thermal conductivity between the CPU and the heatsink.
Installing video cards and such is a honestly a piece of cake in comparision to reapplying thermal compound to your heatsink.
It’s a PC Chips MoBo with a Celeron @ 2.81GHz, LMAO.
And yes, I know, putting RAM and video cards isn’t the big deal, you only need to insert them in the DIMM or the AGP ports and that’s it. Thermal Compound, I once had to help a friend apply some of it to a X360… pretty messy, ugh.