u/No_Morning_6292

I was inspecting the LGA775 socket on this older EVGA NVIDIA board and initially thought I had found a bent pin. After looking at it under a USB microscope from a few different angles, I’m starting to think it may actually be a small bit of dried thermal paste stuck around the pins.
The surrounding pins seem to follow the same pattern, so I’m hesitant to touch anything until I’m sure. What do you guys think?
If it is thermal paste, what’s the safest way you’ve found to clean an LGA socket without risking bending any pins? I’m thinking 99% isopropyl alcohol and an extremely soft brush.

I originally put this machine together as a period-correct-ish XP gaming system, but Final Fantasy XI ended up becoming the thing I really wanted to see running on it.
Specs are roughly:
Pentium 4 631 @ 3.0 GHz

Intel D945GTP

1 GB DDR2

ASUS GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB

WD Blue 250 GB mechanical HDD

Seasonic X650

Windows XP SP3 32-bit

The CPU was originally sitting around 62°C in BIOS with the stock-ish cooling setup, so I tracked down a new old stock Xigmatek Balder SD1283 and installed it. That dropped it to around 54°C, and the CPU fan went from about 2460 RPM down to 1080 RPM, so it’s quieter too.
For FFXI itself I installed from my old physical Vana’diel Collection media and let PlayOnline update it to the current client. That turned out to be 38,721 files and just under six hours of sitting there watching the updater. Staring at “1 file remaining” after basically an entire day was its own kind of experience, but it finished clean.
Everything works. PlayOnline connects normally, character creation works, the current official servers work, and the update even pulled the installation forward with the later expansion content. I’ve already run into newer expansion stuff in-game, including Seekers of Adoulin content. My character is Triston on Fenrir, starting out in Bastok.
I also found out afterward that FFXI Config had defaulted to 640×480, which got a laugh out of me. I changed it to the Dell’s native 1280×1024, cranked the internal drawing resolution to 2560×2048 / Ultra, and the 8800 GTS handles it without complaint.
I went into this expecting that getting a current MMO running on XP in 2026 would need all kinds of hacks and workarounds. Instead it pretty much just works, and the nostalgia hit is unreal.

Main changes: merged the dramatic one-liners into the paragraphs around them, swapped the emoji laughs for plain description (kept the tone, lost the 😂), and joined the two closing lines so the ending lands as one thought instead of two punches. Kept all your specs, numbers, and phrasing choices otherwise.
If you’d rather keep any of those isolated beats (some subreddits genuinely like the “38,721 files.” drop), tell me which and I’ll put just those back.

I originally put this machine together as a period-correct-ish XP gaming system, but Final Fantasy XI ended up becoming the thing I really wanted to see running on it.
Specs are roughly:
Pentium 4 631 @ 3.0 GHz

Intel D945GTP

1 GB DDR2

ASUS GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB

WD Blue 250 GB mechanical HDD

Seasonic X650

Windows XP SP3 32-bit

The CPU was originally sitting around 62°C in BIOS with the stock-ish cooling setup, so I tracked down a new old stock Xigmatek Balder SD1283 and installed it. That dropped it to around 54°C, and the CPU fan went from about 2460 RPM down to 1080 RPM, so it’s quieter too.
For FFXI itself I installed from my old physical Vana’diel Collection media and let PlayOnline update it to the current client. That turned out to be 38,721 files and just under six hours of sitting there watching the updater. Staring at “1 file remaining” after basically an entire day was its own kind of experience, but it finished clean.
Everything works. PlayOnline connects normally, character creation works, the current official servers work, and the update even pulled the installation forward with the later expansion content. I’ve already run into newer expansion stuff in-game, including Seekers of Adoulin content. My character is Triston on Fenrir, starting out in Bastok.
I also found out afterward that FFXI Config had defaulted to 640×480, which got a laugh out of me. I changed it to the Dell’s native 1280×1024, cranked the internal drawing resolution to 2560×2048 / Ultra, and the 8800 GTS handles it without complaint.
I went into this expecting that getting a current MMO running on XP in 2026 would need all kinds of hacks and workarounds. Instead it pretty much just works, and the nostalgia hit is unreal.

I wanted to build a Windows XP gaming PC on the cheap to play early to mid 2000s games especially to see if I could play Final Fantasy 11 online on old hardware as they updated system requirements, but I was doubting that was actually going to be a problem.

Here's the build.

- Intel D945GTP motherboard
- Pentium 4 631 (Cedar Mill) @ 3.0 GHz
- ASUS GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB (restored with fresh thermal pads and thermal paste)
- 1 GB DDR2-533
- Western Digital Blue 250 GB HDD
- ASUS DRW-24B1ST DVD writer
- Seasonic X-650 fully modular power supply
- Fractal Design Focus G Mini
- Windows XP Professional SP3

I did a clean install of XP. Out of the box it's missing a lot of the drivers it needs, so I created a chipset driver CD on one of my Linux PCs. Then I burned a second CD with the remaining drivers, utilities, and software. That made bringing the system online a lot easier.

The optical drive gave me the one real problem. It read CDs perfectly but refused to read my original Final Fantasy XI: Vana'diel Collection DVD. I swapped in an ASUS DRW-24B1ST and it recognized the disc right away. The old drive's DVD laser had just gotten weak over time.

With everything installed, I got Supermium running and connected to PlayOnline. The client updated fine. The one snag was the original FFXI registration code. It had already been redeemed, so I'm waiting for the Ultimate Collection to go on sale, which is coming up, before I make a new account.

I expected this to be a novelty at best. Instead it became one of the most enjoyable PCs I've built. Hearing the PlayOnline music again got me. So did watching XP boot on hardware from the right era and installing software off the original discs. It reminded me why PC gaming in this period was so much fun.

Looking for recommendations for a replacement battery, this is a 3.6v battery, and I see a lot of stuff that 2032 3volt battery in an adapter.