The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Yes indeed. Supposedly 2Gb is the max. And you're probably right. The system is gonna start nickel and diming them to death(multiple component failures). I'm gonna attempt to find agreeable barebones, cheap builds... OPTIONS for them

 

I still say Win 7 and an extra gig of RAM would be your easiest route...

And ouch, real-time filescanner...

 

Indeed. I don't need that garbage

On another note, just finished my taxes. Should be getting a ~$1400 return More than enough for a new pair of glasses, A new motherboard, and hardware for building my generator The next month should be very interesting!

 

Corsair H110 water loop showed up today with two extra Swiftech Helix 140mm fans for push/pull. More assembly than usual for a cooler required but a very solid install once done. The quality and feel of the materials are much better than the Cool-It Eco 120s or Corsair H50s I have seen and used in the past. The hoses are an evaporation resistant rubber instead of corrugated plastic, so much less chance of cracking like the old models loved to do. A little light tugging showed the hose connections to be solid, and not ready to pop open like some H100is. The pump/block is quite low-profile, but seems to be plenty adequate for the loop, and is very quiet.

The radiator is 280mm, which means it is two 140mm fans wide. I am able to run it with four fans in push/pull. I mounted it inside the top of the case, where the 230mm exhaust fan mounted. It is exhausting out the top as well. Was able to replace the 140mm fan on the side with the 230mm fan from the top. I cut a bigger hole in the side panel and put in a stainless 230mm fan grill to dress it up a bit. I now have proper HAF airflow, plus all of my fans are higher performance than stock HAF fans.

The only snag I hit was attaching the cooler to my case. The 140mm spacing means that there is no in-built way to install it. I had to improvise and suspend it by some zip-ties with some rubber pads to dampen vibration. I simply can't get the zip ties tight enough to kill vibration, so the rubber pads are essential. It rattles like mad otherwise Overall though the installation was pretty straight forward, and easy to do. The backplate is plastic with keyed steel thread inserts that can be swapped around to fit different sockets. Not fond of the plastic backplate, but it worked just fine with the included adhesive tape to stick it to the motherboard. No real complaints about installation ore problems I didn't know about before purchasing.

Overall cooling performance is drastically improved, including my chipset temps, which were a primary concern for pushing higher. The 230mm side fan will be the main culprit for that. The 140mm helped, but had jack-all for area coverage, and was only able to feed limited air to the case.

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1100T @ 4GHz 1.5v 2800MHz NB 1.275v(this is considered a fairly aggressive overclock on these chips)

Previous Config:
CM Hyper 212 Evo w/ 2 x 2500RPM 120mm Delta fans Push/Pull, 140mm side fan

New Config:
Corsair H110 w/ 4 x 1500RPM 140mm fans Push/Pull, 230mm side fan

Prime95 Results 1 Hour:

Previous: 58-60 CPU, mid-50s Chipset

New: 45-46 CPU, low 30s Chipset

LOL Think my cooling has improved? This is apparently the very best aftermarket cooler you can have without assembling a custom water loop... and I added some fans
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Four medium static pressure fans in concert at their max of 1500RPM(both the Corsair and Swiftech fans having nearly identical specs) are drastically quieter than two 120mm Delta-style fans at 2500RPM. My lord, I daresay my PC is almost quiet now. The overall noise level is almost a quarter. I was so used to the noise that I just learned to drown it out. Maybe the fans weren't at an irritating frequency for me? They were noisy, but not annoying or whiny.

 

My top fan in the HAF 932 is beginning to make noise. I may opt for better fans myself with my tax return. As much as I'd like to go with the FX-9590, I think just a new motherboard will suffice for now. While the processor is a pretty good buy right now, especially when compared to i7-4960X, $330 is quite a bit to spend right now. And I've never thrown that much down on a processor. Yet! Gaming comparisons, show the two processors very close to each other. Number crunching is apparently a fair amount better with i7. But is it really worth $1000? I don't know...

About ~2 weeks, and I can REALLY play. So many plans Time to make history!!! If only in my backyard

Looking good Jeff!!!

 

I'd recommend the 990FXA-UD3. Much cheaper than my UD5, with nearly identical capabilities. Just be prepared to put a fan over the VRMs if you install a Vishera or Thuban with the intent to OC even a little. Any decent little fan will do. It just runs a bit hotter than the UD5, but a software bug means the throttle limit is set too low, so a VRM fan can fix the problem, as it will never touch that temp with a little direct airflow.

As far as CPUs, I'd almost say stay with your Thuban and re-OC it? That's certainly what I'm doing. Traded up the 1090T for an 1100T and pushing for the limit! 3.8-4GHz is easily doable on a decent air cooler with a Thuban.

There is not much option for 230mm fans and I haven't seen Cooler Master selling them lately. I found a few generic brands and these BitFenix Spectre Pros which have more aggressive blades. What can I say? Build quality is pretty good, noise is reasonable, airflow is good. $25 a piece well spent. Longevity will tell the whole tale but that's true of any hardware.

 

Ha ha, I already had the UD3 in my cart, before your post. I'm strongly considering it, but the UD5 has more sata ports. And you seem to think the UD3 VRM runs hotter? Interesting.

 

It's just a small quirk, but is quite well known on the boards. Nothing really wrong with them per say, they just run a bit warm, which can cause throttling because the thermal limit is set too low from the factory. It's not even really a heat issue, but a bug. Adding a fan fixes that bug AND they run cooler too

The largest difference between the UD3 and UD5 is the cooling. Of course lots of little extra things are different such as SATA ports and PCI-E slots, but they are otherwise quite comparable boards. Despite some glitches which I'd like to clue you in on later, I am quite fond of the UD5, and was actually a little impressed by it when I added the larger side fan.

Very exciting set of upgrades for me lately. Pretty much everything brand new within the last year sans hard drives and case.

 

Right click and select view image or equivalent. Nevermind the wonky voltage reporting. Everything is kosher

 

Hello, my problem is that I have a PC and I am unable to remove the outer casing because it is not attached by screws but by rivets. Does anyone have any experience with this? Figured I could just drill out the rivets but then I'd be unable to attach the outer case.

 

That seems pretty unusual - what was the original make/model of the PC?

 

Indeed. That's highly rare, if it even exists. Are you sure you're not overlooking some unique clipping/button design?

 

There's always some sort of hidden latching mechanism...

 

Here is my odd link contribution part 2.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/mineral-oil-pc.php

Just because?

 

I've seen this a few times before, although not packaged as a retail product until now. Rather them than me, but I can see how it works, until the oil becomes contaminated and starts to conduct

 

Well, quite. I would have thought that somehow dust would get into the oil and contaminate it - I mean, dust gets EVERYWHERE, after all!

But their v1 ran for 3 years by the looks of it, and they didn't upgrade resulting from fault so perhaps not.

Still not something I'm rushing to try haha.

 

How would it become contaminated? I'm considering it with an older build. Just for fun

Dust? Not if it's very sealed

 

Dust is one possibility - From what I recall though running mineral oil over circuit boards eventually picks up trace amount of material from the solder joints etc which contaminates the oil. Perhaps it's not enough of an issue in a properly sealed environment though.

 

Don't get me started on solder joints LOL! It's sickening how cheap the industry has gotten. Look at the PS3...