Overcoming Idiocy: quick advice on cooling an Athlon 64

Eyeless Blond · Post by **Eyeless Blond** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:24 pm

In a bit of a bind on this one. Last week I got roped into making essentially an impulse buy: my brother needed a new motherboard/CPU so I got him this combo at Newegg.

Overall it looks like the combo won't be too bad. Only one problem: I didn't notice until after I bought it that there was no heatsink/fan included! Now I'm looking to get a cooler for a socket 754 CPU on short notice, as I once again have parents, siblings, grandparents, etc. all screaming at me to HURRY UP. Any advice?

(Edit): Looking especially for cheap and relatively quiet. Emphasis on the cheap .

Eyeless Blond · Post by **Eyeless Blond** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:35 pm

Well, the cheap money's definately on this Arctic Cooling Silencer 64 Ultra. Would that work?

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:44 am

Eyeless Blond wrote:Well, the cheap money's definately on this Arctic Cooling Silencer 64 Ultra. Would that work?

Yes.

NB. That Newegg combo is stunningly good value. Â£50 for a 2.4GHz CPU + motherboard? Incredible.

Eyeless Blond · Post by **Eyeless Blond** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:35 pm

Cool.

Yeah. *now* I've got to worry about buying him Windows. He swears he'll be able to get it through his school, but then he swore he could buy his own d*** computer too. Anyone know where they're selling a legal copy of Windows XP Pro for cheap? Do those words even go together?

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:56 pm

Search for "Authorised Education Reseller" - Microsoft do a sort of student discount to download copies of the upgrade disc. You can get XP-Pro for about Â£52 in the UK.

Or... you could get him Vista and really shut him up!

Hope this helps

Eyeless Blond · Post by **Eyeless Blond** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 4:10 pm

Upgrade? Will that work without an "original"? All these weird licencing agreements and Microsoft-sanctioned spyware programs and stuff confuse the heck out of me. Personally I don't plan on ever buying another version of windows past 2000, but I don't think my family is ready to handle Linux and can't afford Macs so I've got to make the effort for them.

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:48 am

You can do a clean install of the upgrade disc, I believe you need an original code to activate it though. School/college networks are a goldmine- usually, every PC is licensed for 98SE, but they tend to run a multi-license copy of XP instead and never need their own codes...

Other than that, there's not much option for a cheap Windows beyond this...

a_punker · Post by **a_punker** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 8:40 am

i buy OEM system builder XP licences. You have to buy these with a 'significant peice of hardware' that the windows licence is then tied to.

maybe a HSF will be considered 'significant' enough.

XP pro OEM is around Â£70, home is around Â£50 i think.

i get them in packs of 3 form ebuyer.co.uk , but they do do singles

a_punker · Post by **a_punker** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 8:44 am

you used to be able to copy the licence number down form a machine at work or school or from a cash machine even! and licence that since it was only used once or not at all,. However that would involve you telling a simple lie to the person on the telephone and would be illegal

Dirty-Harry · Post by **Dirty-Harry** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:54 pm

9 Software has OEM XP Pro for $95.

vitaminc · Post by **vitaminc** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 3:55 pm

get Vista RC1 5768 (or perhaps RC2)

free download, works until July 2007.