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hey i got 2 q's:

1. i heard that some people ore not using thremal paste for their HSFs. is it true that you dont have to use the thermal paste stuff?!?

2. what the heck did the "turbo" button really do... i havent had any real "experience" with any comps that had a turbo button.

thanks a lot
~Shmithers

1. I use Artic Silver

2. I haven't seen a PC with Turbo in years


I think all it did was OC the PC a lil, but only on OLD hardware

1. You can use the thermalpad that comes on many HSFs. Thermal pads/paste are there to increase the heattransfer between CPU and HSF, running without it will only increase the CPU temps. I guess you could eventually run without it but your CPU temps would be rather high and with newer P4s you might run into the zone where the CPU throttles and decreases in speed.
Thermal pads/paste has to be removed from CPU/HSF and reapplied when you remove the HSF for some reason.

2. DoPeY5007 is right, it was only used on old hardware ... old as in 486 or older systems

1. Usually, if a heatsink that I buy has a thermal pad, I will use it - basically because they're too hard to scrape off. If it doesn't have a thermal pad, I use the old tube of Artic Silver that I have. Usually, I don't worry much about it...and on older systems, I don't use it at all. However, on anything over a ghz, I try to use it.

2. I have an older system with a Turbo button at home...and it doesn't seem to do anything at all. Maybe 5 years ago it would have been a significant thing...but they stopped doing it for some reason, I guess because the "overclock" isn't as significant on newer chips. I think that on the system that I have, it only "overclocked" the chip about 33 mhz or something (recalling from memory, so I could be way off).

Let me explain the turbo thing for you "young-uns" who were in diapers back then...

The Turbo switch had NOTHING to do with overclocking. It was an UNDERCLOCKING switch.

WAYYYYYY back in the beginning of the PC era, clock speeds were standardized. The IBM PC/XT (8086 CPU) ran at 4.77Mhz. All clones at first also ran at the same speed.

The clone makers started offering faster speeds to compete with each other: 5.5, 6, or 7 Mhz models. The IBM PC AT (80286 CPU) ran at around 12 Mhz and clones of it were offered running at up to 16Mhz. The first 80386 CPU systems were around 20Mhz.

The problem was that a LOT of early software was written assuming a standard (4.77 Mhz) CPU clock. because at first all PCs were the same speed. Simple timing loops were used to measure delay times to save memory. For instance instead of writing a complex routine to check the clock to wait a certain amount of SECONDS to display something on the screen, the program would count to 90,000 and on a 4.77 Mhz computer that might work out to 1 second (as an example).

We started running into problems when the CPU clocks ran faster than expected on newer systems. It ruined the timing in games and apps that used simple loops to count delays. Your word processor might scroll WAY too fast or your asteroids game might run 3 times as fast.

People eventually started writing software that used more sophisticated timing routines, but there was a HUGE amount of existing software - some of it important business software, and not just games - that wouldn't run properly on faster computers. It started becoming VERY important for computer manufacturers to office "Turbo" mode switches as an option to make their systems more "compatible" with older software.

The Turbo switch would toggle between the standard 4.77 Mhz (or very close to it) and the normal speed of the computer. It was just connected to a divider network on the CPU clock so if the CPU clock was 15Mhz, the Turbo switch would kick in a 1/3 divider on the CPU clock. It also worked on the fly so you could slow the computer down while it was running. Leave it fast for normal, and slow it down when you ran your one or two old apps.

Later, around 80486 era, it became impractical to change the CPU clock speed on the fly so instead the Turbo switch would just tell BIOS to add lots of wait states between CPU cycles, and it effectively accomplished the same thing.

Long after the XT era ended the turbo switch remained a fixture. Some publishers continued to write software that was clock speed dependent (mostly games), so the habit was to offer a clock speed that was equivalent to the last CPU generation. 80386 systems could be underclocked to 80286 speeds. 80486 systems could be underclocked to 80386 speeds and so on.

By the time we got to the Pentium II era, the purpose of a turbo switch was totally obsolete. No one wrote CPU clock dependent code anymore, and there was a software fix for slowing down the occasional old game you might still want to play.

By that time some companies DID start using the Turbo switch as an overclocking feature. These were few and far between though - specialty systems and VERY expensive. There were companies that sold systems with hand-picket CPUs that could be overclocked BUT not all the time. They would not guarantee a stable system at the overclocked speed. They recommended that you ran the clock at normal speed most of the time, and that you only used Turbo mode when you needed to do some serious number crunching. This wasn't intended for gaming.

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
By the time we got to the Pentium II era, the purpose of a turbo switch was totally obsolete. No one wrote CPU clock dependent code anymore, and there was a software fix for slowing down the occasional old game you might still want to play.

By that time some companies DID start using the Turbo switch as an overclocking feature. These were few and far between though - specialty systems and VERY expensive. There were companies that sold systems with hand-picket CPUs that could be overclocked BUT not all the time. They would not guarantee a stable system at the overclocked speed. They recommended that you ran the clock at normal speed most of the time, and that you only used Turbo mode when you needed to do some serious number crunching. This wasn't intended for gaming. [/B]

Thanks for the info, Grandpa
I guess this is one of the models that I have, because my computer had a small LCD screen on it that would read the CPU speed in mhz...and, if I remember correctly, the numbers would go up, rather than down when I pushed the turbo switch. Let me ask you this, though..maybe you'll know...Why did they call it a Turbo switch, if it really SLOWED down the system - seems kinda bassackwards to me?

Originally posted by sheerdark
Thanks for the info, Grandpa
I guess this is one of the models that I have, because my computer had a small LCD screen on it that would read the CPU speed in mhz...and, if I remember correctly, the numbers would go up, rather than down when I pushed the turbo switch. Let me ask you this, though..maybe you'll know...Why did they call it a Turbo switch, if it really SLOWED down the system - seems kinda bassackwards to me?

It's kind of like newer cars wit Overdrive.. You hit the button and it turns Overdrive off.. While not depressed it's engaged.

eGo

Yeah strickly marketing. Doesn't make your computer sound impressive if one of the features is a Slowdown Switch

The other funny thing is those LED displays on the nicer cases that showed your clock speed. That was total bunk - especially since around the 486 era the switch didn't slow the clock down - it just added extra wait states.

Those displays were hardwired to show any speed you want - it wasn't an actual measure of the CPU speed. You could jumper it to show any numbers you wanted.

I always set mine to show a VERY slow speed so that (hopefully) a burglar would ignore it thinking it was an old P.O.S. computer.

Never tested that theory though...

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
Let me explain the turbo thing for you "young-uns" who were in diapers back then...

Thanks for the history lesson. Never knew that.

WOW thanks a lot for all the info...
you guys are great
thanks a lot
~Shmithers

PS i was planning on buying this HSF and was wondering what u think:
http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?L ... er_title=0

Originally posted by sheerdark
Thanks for the info, Grandpa

I thought Flying Penguin was an old fart? I'm the Grandpa.

where you buying it from? there might be a better option, last time I looked those were very expensive.

Greg

ummm im thinking of buying it from a online store called: http://www.ncix.com/
here is their page for the HSF: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... OLERMASTER

Hey, Welcome to PCA!
:B

EDIT: +1 for us canucks!

EDIT: forget this post