I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape. On
closer examination I saw that there were spring
arms that should have been attached to the MB
via two loops soldered on the MB. The problem
was that when the MB was manufactured one of
the loops wasn't installed even though there were
two holes and solder pads for the loop.

I guess that someone at ECS saw the problem and
came up with the idea of glueing the heat sink
which failed in short order.

Until recently Fry's sold a variety of ECS MBs
but they seem to have switched over to Biostar (VIA).

root Inscribed thus:

I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape. On
closer examination I saw that there were spring
arms that should have been attached to the MB
via two loops soldered on the MB. The problem
was that when the MB was manufactured one of
the loops wasn't installed even though there were
two holes and solder pads for the loop.

I guess that someone at ECS saw the problem and
came up with the idea of glueing the heat sink
which failed in short order.

Until recently Fry's sold a variety of ECS MBs
but they seem to have switched over to Biostar (VIA).

Double sided adhesive tape is a standard method of securing heatsinks on
chipsets ! Its cheaper than springs and loops ! In all probability
the heatsink fell off because it wasn't pressed down firmly when
assembled.

--
Best Reagrds:
Baron.

root wrote:
I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape.

Not phase change thermal tape?


--
Adrian C

Baron wrote:

root Inscribed thus:

I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape. On
closer examination I saw that there were spring
arms that should have been attached to the MB
via two loops soldered on the MB. The problem
was that when the MB was manufactured one of
the loops wasn't installed even though there were
two holes and solder pads for the loop.

I guess that someone at ECS saw the problem and
came up with the idea of glueing the heat sink
which failed in short order.

Until recently Fry's sold a variety of ECS MBs
but they seem to have switched over to Biostar (VIA).

Double sided adhesive tape is a standard method of securing heatsinks on
chipsets ! Its cheaper than springs and loops ! In all probability
the heatsink fell off because it wasn't pressed down firmly when
assembled.

Silver loaded epoxy is infinitely better. DS tape is a JOKE.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:



Baron wrote:

root Inscribed thus:

I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape. On
closer examination I saw that there were spring
arms that should have been attached to the MB
via two loops soldered on the MB. The problem
was that when the MB was manufactured one of
the loops wasn't installed even though there were
two holes and solder pads for the loop.

I guess that someone at ECS saw the problem and
came up with the idea of glueing the heat sink
which failed in short order.

Until recently Fry's sold a variety of ECS MBs
but they seem to have switched over to Biostar (VIA).

Double sided adhesive tape is a standard method of securing heatsinks
on
chipsets ! Its cheaper than springs and loops ! In all probability
the heatsink fell off because it wasn't pressed down firmly when
assembled.

Silver loaded epoxy is infinitely better. DS tape is a JOKE.

Graham

I agree ! But that is how it came from the factory.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

Adrian C wrote:

root wrote:
I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape.

Not phase change thermal tape?


He is talking about the chipset heatsink not the CPU one.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:55:31 +0100, Baron
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Adrian C wrote:

root wrote:
I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape.

Not phase change thermal tape?


He is talking about the chipset heatsink not the CPU one.

I've used thermal tapes such as the following. They are impregnated
with metal foil, are very thin, and bond *very* strongly. However they
are very expensive.

http://www.chomerics.com//products/documents/tb72.pdf
http://www.chomerics.com//products/d...ts/TB79new.pdf
http://www.anglia.com/product_guide/...ks/426_430.pdf (KOOL-PADS
KA150-2AC)
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=NM2790

The Kool-Pads brochure talks about "HI-FLOW 105 'phase change' polymer
coated aluminium designed to replace grease as a thermal interface".
It has an adhesive coating. There is also "HI-FLOW 625 film reinforced
'phase change' material" with an adhesive coating.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:55:31 +0100, Baron
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Adrian C wrote:

root wrote:
I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape.

Not phase change thermal tape?


He is talking about the chipset heatsink not the CPU one.

I've used thermal tapes such as the following. They are impregnated
with metal foil, are very thin, and bond *very* strongly. However they
are very expensive.

http://www.chomerics.com//products/documents/tb72.pdf
http://www.chomerics.com//products/d...ts/TB79new.pdf
http://www.anglia.com/product_guide/...ks/426_430.pdf (KOOL-PADS
KA150-2AC)
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=NM2790

The Kool-Pads brochure talks about "HI-FLOW 105 'phase change' polymer
coated aluminium designed to replace grease as a thermal interface".
It has an adhesive coating. There is also "HI-FLOW 625 film reinforced
'phase change' material" with an adhesive coating.

- Franc Zabkar

The Kool-Pads stuff is nice ! I didn't know about the coated foil stuff
though. The film reinforced material is stuff I've used quite a bit.
Very easy to cut with scissors to suit any particular shape. Also very
good at high voltages (400-500) on SMPU.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

Meat Plow wrote:

On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:01:41 GMT, root wrote:

I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard
for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the
previous owner. The failure was caused when the
heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset
fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to
the chipset with double sided sticky tape. On
closer examination I saw that there were spring
arms that should have been attached to the MB
via two loops soldered on the MB. The problem
was that when the MB was manufactured one of
the loops wasn't installed even though there were
two holes and solder pads for the loop.

I guess that someone at ECS saw the problem and
came up with the idea of glueing the heat sink
which failed in short order.

Until recently Fry's sold a variety of ECS MBs
but they seem to have switched over to Biostar (VIA).


You couldn't give me an ECS mobo. I've used them and had prolems right
out of the box. Best board out there is Super Micro or MSI.

They are a bit naff ! But I've seen worse. Dare I say "PChips" !

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:27:19 +0100, Baron
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Meat Plow wrote:

You couldn't give me an ECS mobo. I've used them and had prolems right
out of the box. Best board out there is Super Micro or MSI.

They are a bit naff ! But I've seen worse. Dare I say "PChips" !

PCChips and ECS merged in 2005. I believe the pair are now the number
1 or number 2 motherboard manufacturer.

You can find ECS and PCChips boards in OEM equipment such as IBM,
Compaq, HP.

I'm using an 11 year old PCChips M571 socket 7 board for my Internet
box and an ECS L7S7A2 Athlon XP 2500 box for multimedia.

My experience with PCChips and ECS has been mixed. ECS were the only
company to offer me a motherboard circuit diagram (back in the 386
days), which from a support point of view was good. However, PCChips
was involved in the fake cache RAM scam which was very bad. But my
latest boards have been very reliable, as has my brother's Duron 850
MHz PCChips board.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:27:19 +0100, Baron
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Meat Plow wrote:

You couldn't give me an ECS mobo. I've used them and had prolems
right out of the box. Best board out there is Super Micro or MSI.

They are a bit naff ! But I've seen worse. Dare I say "PChips" !

PCChips and ECS merged in 2005. I believe the pair are now the number
1 or number 2 motherboard manufacturer.

I didn't know that they had merged.

You can find ECS and PCChips boards in OEM equipment such as IBM,
Compaq, HP.

I'm using an 11 year old PCChips M571 socket 7 board for my Internet
box and an ECS L7S7A2 Athlon XP 2500 box for multimedia.

Its odd that you mention the M571 board because that was one of the
worst boards I came across ! I returned a whole case of them because
of corroded traces on the underside. I'm talking brand new boxed kit.

The suppliers eventually admitted that there had been "Quality Control
Issues" during manufacture.

Based on the corrosion I would have said that the boards were either
packaged wet or some etchant was still present when they were packed.

My experience with PCChips and ECS has been mixed. ECS were the only
company to offer me a motherboard circuit diagram (back in the 386
days), which from a support point of view was good. However, PCChips
was involved in the fake cache RAM scam which was very bad. But my
latest boards have been very reliable, as has my brother's Duron 850
MHz PCChips board.

- Franc Zabkar

I agree ECS really bent over backwards to please. The trinkets that
turned up in the packaging were nice as well ! I'm glad that your
experience has been better than mine was.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.