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>"When I told the customer of my suspicions they said that they had recently replaced their processor heat sink. When they put the old heat sink back on their p

>"When I told the customer of my suspicions they said that they had recently replaced their processor heat sink. When they put the old heat sink back on their performance problems went away." A person who buys and installs their own heatsink, but can't troubleshoot a temperature-driven performance problem impresses me as an odd combination. I expect providing support to members of the "enthusiast" PC market is an interesting challenge.

defective 13y ago
There are certainly more online guides to the former than the latter. Also, heatsinks come with instructions in the box. But yeah, I'll bet the "enthusiast" label applies to a greater diversity of people than one would immediately assume....
RobAley 13y ago
Everyone has to learn sometimes, and learning by trying is a great way (also, sometimes a costly way...), it's not that odd a combination I wouldn't suspect.
Shivetya 13y ago
Far too many people buy their own heat sinks because that is what guides or other people tell them they need to have for best performance. There are those who buy it so they are part of the clique. Its not like manufacturer applied heat sinks are fully reliable. I have had more than one go bad in my day, even better my Samsung DLP was the worst of them because its heat sink glue failure was on visible on the screen as white dots.
saraid216 13y ago
I'd actually be capable of buying and installing my own heat sink (I have never bothered doing so; I don't really do hardware mods), but I do not know how to troubleshoot a temperature-driven performance problem. I mean, it's just thermal paste on a fan, right? That's not exactly hard, after a fairly low threshold of know-how.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  I think that you are overthinking it, this sort of troubleshooting doesn't require all that much domain specific knowledge (certainly the author of the article came at it with more than was strictly necessary). If you install new fancy fuel injection nozzles in your car, and suddenly your car is shit, then swap them back out and see if the problem goes away. After you determine that it does, you can start investigating if the installation was botched or if they are broken, or whatever. You don't need to know anything about cars to do that, it's just generic troubleshooting.
petitmiam 13y ago
>"In all cases the customer had said that the problem must be with our game because only our game was hitting these mysterious slowdowns." This probably threw them off.

defective 13y ago

There are certainly more online guides to the former than the latter. Also, heatsinks come with instructions in the box. But yeah, I'll bet the "enthusiast" label applies to a greater diversity of people than one would immediately assume....

RobAley 13y ago

Everyone has to learn sometimes, and learning by trying is a great way (also, sometimes a costly way...), it's not that odd a combination I wouldn't suspect.

Shivetya 13y ago

Far too many people buy their own heat sinks because that is what guides or other people tell them they need to have for best performance. There are those who buy it so they are part of the clique. Its not like manufacturer applied heat sinks are fully reliable. I have had more than one go bad in my day, even better my Samsung DLP was the worst of them because its heat sink glue failure was on visible on the screen as white dots.

saraid216 13y ago

I'd actually be capable of buying and installing my own heat sink (I have never bothered doing so; I don't really do hardware mods), but I do not know how to troubleshoot a temperature-driven performance problem. I mean, it's just thermal paste on a fan, right? That's not exactly hard, after a fairly low threshold of know-how.

jlgreco 13y ago
I think that you are overthinking it, this sort of troubleshooting doesn't require all that much domain specific knowledge (certainly the author of the article came at it with more than was strictly necessary). If you install new fancy fuel injection nozzles in your car, and suddenly your car is shit, then swap them back out and see if the problem goes away. After you determine that it does, you can start investigating if the installation was botched or if they are broken, or whatever. You don't need to know anything about cars to do that, it's just generic troubleshooting.

petitmiam 13y ago

>"In all cases the customer had said that the problem must be with our game because only our game was hitting these mysterious slowdowns." This probably threw them off.