PGA370
Posted by Dehydrated_Lemur@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 4 comments
I been thinking of my socket 370 lately. My heatsink still uses the single hole metal clip that retains itself on the single plastic tab on the socket. With these boards getting older and older, I get more nervous about the plastic tab breaking off when I service these.
Anybody have any ideas how we can preserve these? I think I found replacement plastic sockets online but imagine desoldering all 370 pins! ðŸ˜
LXC37@reddit
Same with socket 462...
I try not to use crazy heavy heatsinks or ones with too much tension.
Also do not mess with them too often. Use good thermal compound and it may be just fine for a decade. Or perhaps one of those new fancy thermal pads which theoretically do not need replacement at all.
bhiga@reddit
Sounds like a good reason to get a hot air station. But yeah I shaved a few of the plastic tabs pretty close back in the day. Some of those heatsink clips were crazy tense, I swear some of my boards were warped from it.
Not sure how we could protect things beyond some kind of clamping metal shim/spreader that goes on top of the CPU that you'd then attach the heatsink/fan to.
I had some later clamps that used a lever system instead of muscle stretch so they were easy to attach/remove without damaging the tabs, so maybe that's an option.
Luckily most of the fans can be replaced without removing the heatsink so disturbance could be minimized by using a long-lasting thermal compound. There are much better things than the old white paste and pink pads we had back then.
Dehydrated_Lemur@reddit (OP)
I actually do own a hot air rework station. Even if that is used, the through holes still need to be cleared out so the new socket can go in. It would be a painstakingly long job. Just wanted to believe there were other solutions then a full replacement.
bhiga@reddit
Some kind of piggyback socket? Now that I think of it I had a Pentium Pro upgrade that fit in the Celeron socket and it had its own blower fan.