Two wrongs can make a right
Image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay
Yesterday I decided to clean one of my computers, which had a thick layer of dust on every single component inside. I used compressed air, which is a very nice option. However, you must be careful not to point the jet directly at a fan, because it will spin up to extreme speed in no time. That’s why it is a good idea to block the fan from moving, before your compressed air goes anywhere near the fan. I was in a bit of a hurry and slipped with my blocking of the CPU cooler. In a couple of 1/10ths of a second I heard the sound of a fan spinning up from zero rpm to like 20000 and it instantly ripped itself to shreds. There were broken plastic fins everywhere. To assess the damage, I decided to remove the heatsink and inspect the cooler. I loosened the fasteners and pulled straight up and BAM. The CPU was ripped out from its socket because the thermal paste had hardened to something resembling epoxy glue. I also bent a couple of CPU pins in the process. Two pretty serious mishaps happened in about one minute. However, I am grateful for the important lessons I learned.
The computer I was working on/destroyed was about 20 years old and had no economic value today, which was quite a relief. But when I searched for “CPU stuck to heatsink” on youtube, I was a bit surprised to find a ton of videos on the topic. With the difference that the accident had occurred with modern computers, where delicate CPUs easily can cost 1000$. I have never come across this problem before. Thermal paste is usually soft, like vegemite, and not like epoxy glue. So, I am thus very grateful to learn this in a “safe way”. I will be extremely careful whenever I remove a CPU from now on. If there is any sign of hardened thermal paste, you can apparently use dental floss soaked in Isopropanol. I will try that later this week on my poor Pentium 4. A heat gun is another option to soften the paste, but that sounds a lot more risky to me. I am convinced that this lesson will help me avoid future potential disasters.
I also got some practice with straightening bent CPU pins today and knock on wood, I think I managed to fix it. I used a snap knife to “catch” the worst bent pins and then I read about a trick where you can use a 0.5 mm graphite pen to straighten it. It worked perfectly, but we won´t know for sure until next week when I am able to fire her up again. Regarding the shredded heatsink, I found an identical one on Tradera for the price of a coffee, which is on its way here now. All in all, quite a lot of useful lessons and practical exercise will come out of this ordeal.
I told this story to my wife tonight and said that I find it oddly satisfying to mend stuff, even if it is something as pointless as a 20 yo computer that cannot be used for anything. But to take something that is broken and fix it, there’s something primal about that. It just feels so nice, the whole process. She said she recognized the feeling from last summer when she renovated one of our bedrooms. To first spackle old screw holes in the wall and then when the first colored stroke of roller pass over it and conceals the hole forever, is also an occurrence that brings a strange and immense sensation of joy. It amounts to the same thing, even if the latter example can be argued to be somewhat more relevant than a CPU from the early noughties... But hey, I can always point to my improved electronics repair skills. I wouldn’t be too surprised if that skill will become more and more relevant in the coming decade. The “throw away and buy a new one”-mentality is probably not sustainable in the long run, and even more important; It is not healthy for the soul to practice not taking care of things.