Hi PCBuilder's,

I ordered a Pentium Celeron 300A from Computer Nerd and received it today.
I went through them because they test the chips stability overclocked
before sending it to you.  (Anyone think this was a mistake?)  They
included a post-it note saying 464 Mhz @ 2.2 V.  I'm hoping since I never
want to take it over 450 and I bought high quality PC100 memory and
powerful cooling that it will be stable at 2.1 V.

OK ... now the reason why I'm posting.

The MEGA fan I also ordered from them is backordered for some time.  Can I
safely run the 300A at 300MHz (66 Mhz Bus) without any chip cooling
whatsoever?  (Except the case fans of course)  Or should I purchase a cheap
single fan cooler to run with the chip (at 300) till the larger cooler
arrives?

Also, the chip arrived with what appears to be an excess of thermal
compound around the edges.  I'll try to describe this .... the main chrome
colored plate is clean and surrounding it is what could possibly best be
described as "caulking" on the edges.  The outer portion of the chip - that
looks like hundreds of little pin holes -  in each of these "pin holes" it
appears that there is a small amount of this compound - and around the edge
of this "outer square" is a little more compound.  The main "board" part of
the assembly is clean.

Is this normal?  Can it do any damage to the chip or cause it to run
incorrectly?  Was the compound applied incorrectly?  I understand that very
little compound is actually needed when cooling the chip.  If it is a
problem then is there any way to properly clean it or should I return the
chip and buy it elsewhere?

Thanks for any help you can give,

Bill Nussbaumer

                Curious about the people moderating your
                   messages? Visit our staff web site:
                     http://nospin.com/pc/staff.html