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The article mentions this, but this was before CPUs had lids. When delidding a CPU, you have to be very careful not to crack the silicon die that you are applying force directly to. In the case of this Athlon, even care wasn't enough.

by polpo15 hours ago|

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Interestingly, AMD's previous gen processors, the K6/K6-2/K6-III, were all lidded flip chips. A delidded K6-era CPU looks remarkably similar to the early Athlons which did away with the lid.

by 3453f4f14 hours ago|

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There are three good pieces of history for you to look at.

First, the NexGen Nx686 prototype... that became the K6 after AMD bought NexGen.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990901212245/http://www.sandpi...

https://web.archive.org/web/20000831030211/http://www.sandpi...

https://web.archive.org/web/20000831030227/http://www.sandpi...

Second, the AMD K6 prototype... which came in a small footprint ceramic package.

https://www.cpushack.com/chippics/AMD/K6/AMDK6-Processor-CA-...

Third, the AMD K7... which also came in that small footprint ceramic package, on a Slot A PCB, with L2 cache chips.

http://www.cpu-galerie.de/html/amdk7athlonslot.html

Enjoy!

by cogman106 hours ago|

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Man I sort of miss the cartridge CPU. I get why it's not a thing anymore, but man was it fun to slot in a CPU like you would an old SNES game.

by srean12 hours ago|

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49407748

Thanks for the nostalgia trip.

by Dwedit9 hours ago|

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Pentium 4 had lids. AMD Athlon XP did not.

by srean12 hours ago|

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Your comment reminded me of my K6 (or was it a K7) based PC I had assembled as a high schooler of modest means.

My goto testing protocol was to recompile the Linux kernel and make GNU chess play itself at the highest settings.

I was quite disheartened to find that my rig would crash out repeatedly. Not a single successful compilation of the kernel. Then on a whim I removed the case and pointed my table fan at it. Voila, everything worked.

I had planned to get some more thermal paste and redo the thermals and put the case back. But I never did.

Then one day the dialer of my landline got fried by a thunderstorm. No problem I used to dial using my modem and my skeletonic linux box.

Great setup when the money is tight. Good times.

by anyfoo6 hours ago|

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I tried everything for my IBM 6x86 PR166+. Everything. Pretty much every BIOS setup option, fans, reapplying thermal paste… still, the machine would often not survive a Linux kernel build without SIGSEGV, or just randomly hang.

Much later I finally noticed that the PSU, that I had in this same case ever since the PC started out as a 486, was something ridiculous, like 75W or so. I got a new cheap PSU, and finally the spookiness stopped.

by joaquincabezas11 hours ago|

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Table fan was the way to go in our first LAN party during the summer of the year 2000 in the south of Spain. These computer case side panels were all piled against the wall.

by inigyou9 hours ago|

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as a kid I once had a PC that would make a very loud siren noise when it was overheating. I don't know why they thought that was a good idea but I did solve it by pointing a fan at it. Somehow my parents never came and asked what's that noise.

by xattt14 hours ago|

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Flip-chip packaging is still common in laptops. Still a (albeit minor) risk if you're repasting an older laptop.

by formerly_proven13 hours ago|

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The article is mistaken, all the lidded chips (discussed here) are also flip chip/C4. Just with a metal plate on top. That would be in contrast to the earlier lidded chips (like a 68k or i486) with ceramic packages, where the chip is mounted right side up on the ceramic package and then wire bonded, the lid just covers the bond wires.

by weiran13 hours ago|

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TBH I don’t think I’ve seen a lidded chip on anything other than a CPU.

by NuclearPM12 hours ago|

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Thank you for being honest.