So, my work machine was getting long in the tooth. Occasionally not booting and requiring me to jiggle memory sticks or tighten CPU cooler screws. It was a DDR3 machine with a Xeon E3 1230V2 with 8gb of RAM (and oddly enough an RTX 2060.) The fans were getting pretty loud, too.
I had a Ryzen 2600x and 16gb of DD4 from my home PC lying around, so I bought a cheap mainboard, tore the old one out of the case, attached all the hardware to the new mainboard - including the SSD with Mint installed - and BOOM! It booted first try without issue. Even going from Intel to AMD, DDR3 to DDR4. My mind is blown!
I can’t imagine how borked my machine would have been if I’d tried that with Windows.
Now, what do I do with a still-working Xeon and mainboard?!?
This also deserves consideration. More eco-friendly, and it gives me a chance to practice my desoldering skills.
Just take the CPU and put it into resin
Do I need a mold or something? Can I just buy a tube of resin and use a cup I don’t care about?
I think its probably harder than that but I don’t know much. I do know you will need to get rid of the air bubbles some how. I’ve scene people use a vacuum pump for that but you got to get the timing right.
Its tricky but it would be so cool to have a CPU in resin.