The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Estuansis,

I've yet to clean mine, since it was first installed. It still looks perfectly clean!

Russ

 

Russ, your better off with the ATI cards over Nvidia's. Before AMD took over ATI Nvidia was the way to go but these days not only are ATI's better but they tend to be cheaper too. I use to buy Nvidia only now it is just the opposite.

 

Disregard my last post. I'm an idiot LOL! I assumed windows 7 (in it's infinite wisdom), would automatically acknowledge and install the appropriate drivers. Nope. Had to do that with the included driver cd. Yup, I'm a fool LOL! Nah, I got so used to windows 7 just taking care of most things.

 

Mr-Movies,

I've been an nVidia fan for many years. I haven't had the best luck with Ati. I also need an nVidia card for my company's AutoCad custom software. It requires Cuda! I have an XFX HD4670 1GB DDR3 card for Oxi, and it's a great card! My last Ati card before the HD was an 800GTS that essentially became an 800GT, by enabling all the piplines. I always wind up with driver headaches with Ati cards, never happens with nVidia cards.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Yah well, in my opinion, Ati integrated has my vote. I've had/seen too many failures on the Nvidia integrated boards. I say this with respect, believe me. I love the hell out of my GTX 260.

Oh man! I'm loving my eSATA ports! I just averaged over 100MB/second on my transfer from Wanda(2TB) to Yolanda(1TB) I'll be watching some videos from the dock tonight, to see if the problem comes back. But I firmly believe it was the HAF932's issue that introduced the problem.

 

Again I use to breath Nvidia but ATI is hands down better and I've not had problems with all the pipes loaded plus you get way more to load with ATI. Now if you need a ProE/AutoCAD workstation card then you are limited of course just like if you have a MAC.

 

Oman7,

I agree 100% on the Ati integrated. For one, you don't lose memory resources when you switch to a dedicated video card like you do with the nVidia chipset, and when you turn it off, it's completely off! I know I'll be looking forward to a GTX550 Ti, hopefully in the not too distant future.

I'm very glad to hear that the eSata card worked out for you! I went ahead and ordered the OCZ550FTY 550w PSU. I read all of the reviews I could find, and only came up with one negative one, and the guy who wrote the review made it obvious that he had an axe to grind with OCZ!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Yah, the card is working wonderfully so far. I've streamed over an hour of video, no hiccups. Definitely have a problem with the front HAF932 port.

I hope the new PSU solves your problem

 

Oman7,

I'm sure it will. I think there is a couple of Caps slowly going bad in it, or a VRM is going bad. I'm going to fix it and keep it as a spare. I can get everything I need locally, so it should be fairly easy to repair. Nothing lasts forever! LOL!! I don't think there is anything seriously wrong with it though. Oddly enough the biggest complaint about the 550 is that the Power and CPU plugs aren't modular. My attitude is why make them modular? It's not like it's an option not to use them, so what's the point of having to provide another cable and socket. I personally think it was a smart idea on OCZ's part to make it that way!

Russ

 

Pays to be a handy man. I know all about that

I'm really appreciating the HAF932 now. My external drive via the sata dock is running over 13C hotter than my internal drives. Man that HAF932 is impressive!

 

Actually it is an option to not have them attached, but only if you're using it as a secondary booster supply, which is pretty rare. In any case, very few PSU brands bother making those two connectors modular for this reason.

 

Sam,

I remember when these first came out, seeing one that everything was modular on. Had to be 3-4 years ago. I remember making a comment about the Amphenol type connector and why it was a poor choice for power, because when you put a heavy load through that type of connection, it eventually causes heat that causes the metal contacts to expand when warm and contract when cold. Gradually the connection develops high resistance, much like a cold solder joint, and get's hot and eventually arcs inside the connection. I've seen one! The brass pins inside of the plug melted! The female pins were solid brass, and fairly heavy with 4 splits in them, the idea being the slight tension when the pins mate would be enough to keep a tight connection. No one took into account that over time that through the process of getting warm and then cooling off, some of the temper of the brass would be lost and the connection would become looser, even though the lock ring on the plug would be tight. I've seen the same thing with the basic 4 prong Peripheral Connectors, where the plugs were burned almost black from a bad connection.

As far as I know, only Silverstone and SeaSonic have modular power connections, all the rest are hard wired internally!

Russ

 

Modular is a problem just like SATA (internal) are poor connectors low cycle insertion rates with sloppy tolerances. They should use a self wiping connector but that is not cost effective apparently, I don't personally get goo-goo eyed over mod PS's but I do have one though. I can neatly manage a hard wired PS with no problem and really don't see the need for modular myself.

 

Sounds mainly like an out of spec thing then, because the typical 4-5A load through those connectors isn't enough to get them very warm at all. Any heat they pick up is likely to be transfer from the heat of the PSU itself, and if the PSU casing is getting that hot, then the PSU isn't very good anyway. It should be noted that Seasonic are about the best PSU manufacturer there is right now, so if they do something, it's probably justifiable.
The only PSUs I remember seeing with amphenol connectors are Hiper and ABS, which aren't two brands I place high faith in, at least not any more.

 

The connector can have resistance even brand new and that is the problem, the heat is the effect from that resistance. Then if the load is high current that also makes it worst.

 

Sam,

That's what the one I saw was, an ABS! If I'm not mistaken, I think you bought a Hiper! The ABS had the 20+4 connector, the CPU plug and a plug for the video card. I don't remember what kind of plug that was, but the whole thing drew far more amps than the 4-5A you are talking about, especially if the computer was overclocked. This was 3-4 years ago, maybe more, and chips back then used a lot more power than they do today. You could fry eggs on some of the old AMD and P4 chips of the day. I burned the peripheral plug for my 800GTS and had to replace the plug socket on the video card because of a bad connection. One day I turned it on and there was no video. You couldn't even unplug the video card! Turned that sucker almost black and melted the plastic together! That's before I learned the importance of a good quality PSU, and knowing the difference between crap and something decent! I think I had that "Black Chrome piece of junk then! You also have to consider that once they start arcing, the Amp load goes even higher! BTW, I doubt very much that the case of the PSU would absorb very much heat, because the socket itself was some kind of hard Bakelite kind of material They weren't metal! I had to use my channel locks to get the lock ring off of the ABS. In fact I had to break the plug to see what was left of the insides of the plug socket! LOL!! Once I got the socket out, I enlarged the hole, and installed a rubber grommet and a new harness on the ABS. It worked fine after that!

Russ

 

Yeah I had a Hiper Type-R 580W, which incidently, is still in use in a friend's system today, at the age of 4y9m, outlasting its CWT-built Thermaltake Toughpower replacement, which the guy I sold it to has retired due to unstable rails.
CPUs back in 2006 ish when those PSUs were popular actually used a lot less power than enthusiast CPUs do today, the difference was that their cooling systems were much less proficient. With the exception of the extreme editions and the Pentium dual core which we'll draw a veil over, most CPUs were at most, 90W, the 120-140W we regularly see with AMDs and i7s these days was almost unheard of back then. Prior to the CPUs in those days, draw was even less, you can track the steady increase of component power consumption (graphics is worse, but CPUs have done it too) over the years, as you look back over each generation.
Modularity was actually quite poor on the Type-R, you only got a PCIe 6-pin, or a couple of molexes, or a couple of SATAs on each bracket, very little in the way of current draw, it was almost impossible for any of them to draw more than 6A.
The ABS of course may well be a completely different story.

 

Definitely missing the Scythe fan. At least a little. Cpu temperature is up 2 - 3C without the Scythe pulling air through the radiator. Not extreme no, but since summer time is around the corner, I definitely wanna get the best temperatures possible. I live in a Semiarid region, that gets pretty warm in the summer time And who knows, perhaps a real water cooling solution could be in my future. Provided my finances perk up
A buddy of mine just lost his job at the very place that I want to work! It won't happen though. It's extremely difficult to get on there. And finding a second job to mesh well with my current job...difficult to say the least.

Recommendations for a fan controller? Rather than buy another 1200 scythe, I'll use my 1900 and tone it down a bit I'll also be buying the 1090t here soon, so cost should be a consideration. Though quality is definitely a must.

 

The Yate Loons Nexus 120mm is very quite and in the rpm range you are looking for.

 

Ahh yes. I've bought 2 Nexus fans. Impressive actually. 2 80mm fans. One is in an HTPC, the other is about to replace an exhaust fan in my brothers primary machine. Pretty quiet, and moves some air.

Fact of the matter is though, I'm really gonna need a controller soon anyway. I imagine I'll have more fans in the HAF down the road. I'd like direct control of those fans. I'm looking at these two. I believe Sam has respect for this particular brand, if I'm not mistaken.
Sunbeam Rheobus