QX9300 OEM Can Be Bought For xxx USD

always nice.

 

It's not a hard tear-down, just a little time consuming

 

the magnesium motherboard cover is a mofo.....10 screws?!

 

When you get used to it, it's a 25-30 minute job. The small cables still hold me up a bit.

 

that is WAY to long though

was like 5 minutes in whitebook lol, guess that spoiled me

 

Yeah, the tiny cables got me one night. I was trying FOREVER to get the keyboard cable and lightfx cable back in. lol

Now it is easy after you do it a couple of times, though

 

for me it wasn't the cables, just all the dam screws...and of course curiosity took over and I HAD to take out the pcb all along the right side with audio ports and card reader....it didn't like going back in haha

 

I was terrified to do it the first time, but Sleey0 suggested I give it a try! I ended up taking it down and putting it back like 3 or 4 times, but now I can do it all by memory! I'm glad I did, because I feel much more confident about handling any upgrades in the future now.

 

it is not that I was uncomfortable, just inconvenienced haha. I am perfectly fine taking the stuff apart (although it is always nice to not have any screws left over)

 

and that's the exact reason to do it.

 

yep, nothing builds confidence like actually doing

When I built my first PC I was all scared I would screw up the thermal paste of all things....haha

Now I can do it with my eyes shut

 

I was very concerned about the thermal paste also. Electronics are either screwed in, or not, or plugged in, or not. But too much paste or not enough can be relative and I didn't want to screw it up! My temps are in the 40-50c range so I guess I did okay

 

Congrats!! I am doing this on Saturday so I dont have to be rushed.. Being rushed is bad as things never go according to plan.. I anticipated it being like 45 min to an hour for my first complete tear down.. After that, it will be much quicker..

I remember that, and actually the most stressful time was when everything was assembled, plugged in and I hit the power button... You know.. It's that worrying feeling of is something gonna pop, smell smoke ect..
When I started building desktops, things weren't keyed or color coded like they are today.. Not even the processor had a key on it.. If you put it in wrong, pop smoke ect...

Now its basically dummy proof as everything is keyed and for the most part color coded.. Things can still go terribly wrong if you don't know what you are doing but way more unlikely this day...

 

been there done that, about 15 years ago. Fried an internal power cable. I still remember my roommate saying "what's that smell?"

 

ya these days everything only fits in one place in one way it is pretty idiot proof

 

ROFL , I have done that and i remember putting a processor in wrong and poof... It was a loud pop.. it happened in milliseconds.. I am glad I had two of them ahahaha..

Learned my lesson real quick.. Back in the day when I tought myself how to do all of it .

Btw I dont miss the manual switches on the MB.. I enjoyed the day when everything was done electronically by detection or in the BIOS... No more making sure switches were properly selected on the MB...

 

FSB jumpers FTW!!

lol

 

jumpers....haha

only boards that still have those are DFI boards and alot of them are redundant to the bios anyway

It is like they want you to be inconvenienced

 

haha FSB jumpers, I remember those!

 

asrock also uses them still lol

 

ya but they are doing it as a cost saving measure lol

 

Does this deal still work? It's still up on their site, but I'm at work and can't sift through 30+ pages easily >.<

Also, anyone who has got one from them...no problems/smooth sailing so far?

 

So far everyone has gotten them and they work great. As far as I know, the deal is still active, so order one up!

 

If I had $500 to burn I'd be all over this. lol

Actually, I DO have the money but it isn't going to get approved in my house

 

what the other doesn't know wont hurt her just sell your current cpu to offset the cost

 

Well, I submitted my order on 8/6. My Order Status page shows an Expected Ship Date of 8/10. It is still in Open Order status and has not shipped. Probably backlogged thanks to all the eBay sellers

 

My student loans don't get a say in how I use them! lol

My only concern is I am hesistant to void my warranty.

 

Don't think that a P8600 would sell for much

 

How much would a Q9000 sell for?

 

200-250ish.... I already have someone interested in mine.. just debating if I should sell or keep....

 

Well you just made up my mind on the QX9300, at least i'll recoup a good portion. =)

Hopefully its fairly easy to replace on a W90Vp.

 

just got my qx9300 for 450 including rush delivery

 

Can I ask you where you got it for that price? Thank you!

 

dell parts...worked for me great

 

I couldn't find anything at their parts store...got a direct link?

 

Man I want an OEM QX9300 so badly, but HP Canada charges 687.00 for it still cheaper than pretty much all other places, but still with the exchange rate for the USD 502.00 = 554.00 CAD, 687.00 is just price rape.. Not to mention with taxes it comes to 775.00 even.

I really only have around 570 CAD to put down on the CPU so I guess I'm screwed, I really wish companies would stop price gouging non Americans.

 

Do..you have to apply thermal paste to replace the CPU?

I watched Moo's guide and all it seemed was to unscrew the CPU, insert another, and reassemble.

I'm not sure how skilled I would be with applying paste xD

 

I was real anxious about spreading the thermal paste as well but I bit the bullet.

I used Arctic Silver 5, there might be better but I know that AS5 is at the top of every list. You can also pick it up at Radio Shack if you don't want to order it online. There are directions for applying it to a quad core on their site: http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_intel_quad_wcap.pdf

I had a tough time with doing the line method, where you let the heatsink spread it out. After a few failed tries I switched to the 'spread a real thin layer' method and had much better results. The idea is to spread it as thin as possible across the chip, less is more.

I bought these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100010

Thermal Compound Remover and Purifier. It took me a few tries before I felt like I did it right, and when I screwed up I just cleaned it, purified it, and tried again. It took me a awhile, but you can just keep doing it until you feel comfortable you did it right.

 

Link or it didn't happen...

 

I called Dell spare parts for a x9100 and they quoted me $2K.

 

If they charge that much for an X9100 he definitely did not get a QX9300 for 450.00, I knew I smelled bulls**t.

Anyways Mandrake are you selling your X9100? I might be interested, I've been looking for a QX9300 but its not looking good ATM, might have to settle for an X9100.

 

I thought you bought scook's since he said he sold his.

I have not convinced myself yet that I'm keeping the qx9300 and that's why I haven't put the x9100 up for sale yet.

 

Scook sold his to someone else. If you decide to sell the QX9300, can you let me know first? it would be much appreciated, I really need one of those badly. Also if you decide to sell the X9100 let me know too, I would be happy to take one of them off your hands, and I have a verified Paypal account.

 

No problem Crylo.

 

Thanks a lot Mandrake it is much appreciated.

 

called up dell as well about the qx and they said there was no way it would sell for that amount and they didn't even have it in their system. i also smell some stinkin......

 

Yeah it sounded too good to be true, I went to Dell after I saw his post and I couldn't even find it in their parts department.

 

Hey guys- well, thanks to Scook, I now have a nice QX9300 (sorry about that Crylo, btw) and now just waiting on the lappie- not related to procs, but nevertheless a sweet deal, Newegg has got a 3 day Hard Disk Drive sale going on where they are taking 15% off of every HDD they're selling- so now would be an ideal moment to expand that storage space. Figure most people know, but in case you don't get their e-mails or check their site every morning, consider this a heads-up.

 

With mobile chips, they dont have the heat spreader like a desktop cpu that covers the entire chip.. You just have the tops of the die...

So a small dot in the middle should be more than enough to cover the die when the heatsink is applied.

I dont see how it would be that challenging..

Am i missing something here?

 

with a exposed die you really should spread the paste out in a very thin layer before applying the heatsink, this is the method recc for this type of application by almost every company i have seen. its right on as5 web site even..

you should use a dot about the size of a small grain of rice on each core. i recc a good condition credit card that has been cleaned really well with 91% alcohol then very lightly spread it out very thin and even.