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> ...you should still clean your CPU at least annually: use soap, warm water, and a soft rag to get the gunk out of the transistors. I know the author is just
by Stratoscope 2y ago
> ...you should still clean your CPU at least annually: use soap, warm water, and a soft rag to get the gunk out of the transistors.
I know the author is just making a joke here, and it is funny. Somehow it reminded me of some actual advice I've seen more than once on /r/thinkpad. I am paraphrasing from memory, but I'm sure I have the gist of it:
> When you get a brand new ThinkPad in a factory sealed box, the first thing you must do is completely disassemble it and inspect all the parts. When you reassemble it, repaste the CPU with a quality paste like Arctic MX-4. Now you will have a ThinkPad built to your standards, not Lenovo's.
- kstenerud 2y agoReminds me of a little quip in a 68000 programming language book I read a long time ago. Paraphrasing: "Upon executing HALT, the processor will stop, and nothing short of a reset will get it going again. Although threatening it with a hammer has been known to work on occasion, especially if it knows you've killed before."
- HobbitJack 2y agoReading the Wikipedia page on Halt and Catch Fire it seems this issue actually caused a certain set of illegal opcodes to become an "official' HCF instruction (opcode was DD so it was also known as "Drop Dead") as it was also later used by the engineers for product testing or something.
- ChuckMcM 2y agoAnd there will always be a customer that writes to support asking what size hammer should be used to test that parameter.
- Stratoscope 2y agoWhy, a rowhammer, of course!
- exe34 2y agotangentially reminds me of the advice for waterproofing an outdoors electronics enclosure. use a waterproof enclosure, make sure the seal is properly placed, and intact, seal everything up and drill a hole in the bottom to let the water out.
- tlb 2y agoIt's more and more true, though, that the physical condition of your CPU and heatsink affects performance. Because under heavy workloads they're often thermally limited, and every 0.01 K/W of thermal resistance makes a noticeable difference.