I just recently purchased a 1.4 GHz T-bird on a Abit KG7. I put thermal paste and a Dragon Orb 3 on the CPU. After getting the system all up and running, ran it for 6 hours and it crashed hard. Now I can get it to post, but no OS will run on it. Took the Dragon Orb off and it has expanded so much that I can not get it back on. What the hell can I do or is this just a really bad T-bird?

Two guesses...

First problem: Dragon Orb, it's not up to a Athlon 1400

Second problem: thermal paste - get some Arctic silver instead.

What temps where you getting ? I run a a KG7 with a Athlon 1400(266)@1600 cooled by a Swiftech MC462-A and get CPU temps of around 50 C, case closed.

H.

Probably you put too much thermal paste on the core, you only need to put a drop in the middle. You can tell from the print on the cooler bottom if it was too much or too less. It happened with me on a TBird C @ 1333, it ran at 68 celsius after 10 min, then i couldnt even install windows (got VxD errors). Got the cooler off, cleaned the bottom, applied 1 drop of thermal, and i've been running the same CPU for 2 months now problem free. Temp around 41 Celsius after several hours.

Yes, like dirty hary said a dragon orb is not the cooler you want to be running with a 1.4 t-bird. Y might want to do a little research as to what heat sink you should use. I can personaly recomend a Thermalright SK-6 w/delta fan. As for applying the goo. You want to clean the heatsink bottom, I mean CLEAN it so you would eat off of it. Don't touch it with your fingers because the oil form your fingers will affect the thermal goo. After you clean the heatsink you want to put a generous amount on the bottom of the heat sink and spread it around with something like a plastic bag with your finger in it. You don't want to get any fibers in it. You are rubbing it around so that the goo will fill in any blemishes that the bottom of the heatsink might have. Make sure you rub it all in. It should end up looking like there is non left on the heatsink. Then you should clean the core of the chip. I use a q-tip and some alcohol. Make sure that there are no fibers left from the q-tip. Then you want to put just a thin layer on the core, so you can almost tell what color the core is.

Ohh and another thing, is your chip toast? If it got hot enough to expand the heatsink then your chip might be a gonner.

The chip isnt dead if it posts

But you should definatly get a better HS than the dragon orb, authough i thought it could actually cope with a 1.4 athlon when used with a good thermal paste and a good contact.

Oops I read it wrong I thought that he said now I cant get it to post. Everything that I have looked at says that the dragon is a POS.

Well thats orbs for ya

The only 1 ive ever used was the blue orb and i liked that but your right, the orb cpu coolers are pants

Oh, and how loud of a fan can you handle? Them Delta's are loud, if that mp3 clip was any indication. And that whine... I forget what fan does just as good as the delta, but isn't nearly as loud. I want to say Papst, but it might be Sunon. Can't remember where I saw that tid bit.

for the best cooling at the least sound I would go with a 80mm panaflo. They produce something like 36 cfm at 31db.