I have a DFI Infinity 975X/G motherboard and recently I had some difficulty with the system in that it would not boot and I lost access to the BIOS. In the process of checking connections and reseating the memory etc I removed the heatsink next to the chip marked "Intel 975X". I noted that the base was crusted and the face of the chip underneath was also crusted with a grey material. I cleaned and recoated the surface with heat transfer pasted and reseated the heatsink. Then thanks to help received on this forum I was able to reset my BIOS and the system was up and running again. I noticed that the system seem to run much faster than it did previously. Is this just my imagination or have things actually improved as a result of the spring cleaning I gave the heatsink and its opposite number? The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money!

Hi Ewen No, Your observation that your system is faster is just your imagination. Cleaning your system is good but it does not improve the speed. But yes, sometimes if your system does not boot up cleaning RAM and heatsinks does help.

I would disagree. A overheating componet will certainly effect the bus. Its like having grandma driving at 45mph in the fast lane of a freeway at rush hour. Grandma gets off and everyone goes faster.

I agree with Wanderer. If a CPU is overheating a bit it can stop for a time, and when it cools slightly start up again. This stop time can be very short and not noticeable by the user, but it does slow the system down.

I would also add that changing the BIOS settings to default(or whatever you did when you reset it) may also have contributed to the increase in speed.

Thank you all for your help... I like the grandma analogy because that is about what my PC was like "grandma in the fast lane". kx5m2g... apart from changing the boot order and the capability to boot from USB I did in fact use the default settings which were different in some respects to the settings the technician who built my PC had. The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money!

Many CPUs, when overheating, will slow their clock speed to conserve power (power = heat) and keep themselves from burning up. So, YES. The CPU really was running slower than normal. the Northbridge, will do the same. (your intel 875x) Good troubleshooting work! Rich Gu