The quest begins. (LGA 775 INTEL)

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P

Opening the package, my heart begins to race as I see the vibrant blue with yellow and red accent.  This is the very first motherboard I’ve ever built on. Although this is not my original build, this is the exact model that I had. I cannot believe that all these years later I’ve got another identical motherboard. My rig was originally built with this motherboard and an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600. (https://intel.ly/36iJeCm) Then later as life went on I got a job at a local computer repair shop. (Pham Computers http://bit.ly/2RCbOJI) Regularly customers would bring in their old, non working computers and ask for us to recycle them. Few and far between would we come across a part that was worth keeping, and most times then not, the parts worth keeping wouldn’t work. Until one day, I came across something I’ve never before seen in my life. The Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800. (https://intel.ly/37mwUTa) Upon first testing, the CPU didn’t work, and it explained why the customer had come in to have us recycle it. I wouldn’t give up home. Not on such an expensive part. I sold the customer a new computer, cured their headache and told them that if the processor every came back to life I would be sure to let them know. 

About a year went on and I continued to work my 9 to 5 job at someone else’s computer repair shop.

During all of that time, none of us had figured out what was wrong with the QX6800. I ended up asking if I could take the CPU home with me because we were about to take a load of “junk” to an electronics disposal facility and the QX6800 was in that pile of “junk”. That was when I loaded the QX6800 into my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Motherboard. To no one’s surprise the computer wouldn’t boot. I wasn’t shocked but it sure was worth the excitement and the heartbreak. After removing the CPU I noticed something I had never seen before, thermal compound on a very small section of the pins on the underside of the CPU. I thought briefly to myself, “There’s no way that’s been the problem this whole time.” Time to crack out the isopropyl alcohol and give this CPU a through cleaning. (Something I had thought was done previously to no avail) I got everything ready for the cleaning and even pulled out a small magnifying glass just to make sure if it was in places I couldn’t see, it got cleaned off. Cranked the lights up as bright as I could get them in my bedroom, and started cleaning with a very gentle, fiber free cloth. After the first cleaning I noted that whatever thermal compound was on this CPU it was holding on for dear life. Practically covering an entire pin with a clear coat. I did something I shouldn’t have, and took some semi abrasive q-tips to the pins that were covered with the thin film. After my final look under the magnifying glass, it appeared as though it was clean. I mean, really clean and shining to the point of brand new looking. Gently placed the CPU back in the LGA 775 socket and lowered the retention arm. Added just enough of my favorite thermal compound and placed the intel stock cooler back on top of the CPU. While plugging the computer back in, I thought to myself, “could you imagine if that was what the problem was? What if, all of this time it was simply user error on the customers end and that same thermal compound was in the socket of the motherboard?” When the power cord hit the wall, the computer automatically booted, usually a very terrible sign, and I started slapping that delete key to enter the BIOS. Each slap, each keystroke, every single movement on the keyboard my heart was skipping a beat. Faster, faster, faster my heart went. Then, it happened. The BIOS came up. The CPU was registering and showed up correctly, 2.93GHz on all 4 cores, 8MB Cache Intel QX6800.

I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. More happy than ever, so very excited to throw some of the most demanding games at it just to see what kind of number we could get. I hope that today is another one of those days. I hope I feel that overjoyed extreme excitement just to see if we’re going to make it into the BIOS. Would you come with me on an adventure to share that excitement, and to share the joy of having some classic hardware fire up for the first time in a long time? Would you join me for a whole slurry of computer hardware adventure? Who knows, today might just be the day we clear that old gummed up thermal paste off of a QX6800 and see it crunch some numbers for the first time in YEARS! 

My plan is to take everyone that will join me on a wild ride of their lifetime. My goal is to push the limits of modern and classical computing technology and see if by any chance we could merge them into one. Is it possible to install an SSD into a 5+ year old computer and revitalize it? Could you imagine what could happen with an NVME SSD on a 10 year old system? I’m excited to take a deep dive into any and all technology. But we’re going to take it a day at a time. We’re going to install 1 CPU at a time, and see what kinds of changes we get from a simple CPU swap vs. GPU swap. So come along, I invite you to share with me, all of the trouble you’ve been through with computers. I invite you to comment on everything I put together, and even tell me how you may have done it differently. Let’s take this road one step at a time, and change the future as we know it. Because who know, today might just be the day you win The Silicon Lotto!