The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

I'm going to upgrade one of my ASRock boards as it is horrible for USB support and I thought I would get a new hdd as well. As I've stated before I'm not thrilled with Seagate however right now they are the cheapest considerably so I'm on the fence as to which direction I should take. The failure rate on the standard 1T is around 0.3% annual which is really pretty good if that is true. So have any of you had experience with any of these and what do you think?

My ASRock M3A790GXH-128M which I will replace by one of these boards probably:
ASUS M4A88TD-M/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard


GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard


MSI 880GMA-E45 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Foxconn A88GM Deluxe AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s Micro ATX AMD Motherboard


Hard drives I'm interested in:

(BEST DEAL)
Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

(This could go in my Media Server)
Seagate SV35 Series ST31000526SV 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

(BEST DRIVE)
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

 

I've had some nasty fan controllers one I just threw out that was real pretty had a lit lcd display and all the bells and whistles but that Sunbeam is a much better unit than the one I just dumped at 4x its cost. Sam has good taste.

 

Yeah I actually retired the rheobus as I was sick of the ridiculous LEDs and needed another controller to replace a failed rheobus extreme, so I figured I'd do both at once and bought two Scythe KazeMasters. They're pretty slick.

 

Hmmm, the Rheobus extreme is what i'm really looking at. 30W per channel just plain sounds tough, compared to other models. I think I can deal with "Ridiculous" LED's LOL! Plus it has 6 channels. Eventually, 4 would not be enough, and I don't like the idea of using yet another bay for another controller Just how bright are the LED's? In a dark room, is it considerable? I know when I first got the HAF932, the Power led + Hdd activity light were rather extreme. I got used to it though.

Although I suppose your Kaze master at 1 amp per channel is impressive. That'd easily handle my 1900 scythe. Which is only a half amp I believe...

 

Well, all I can say is the original Rheobus didn't short out my PSU a couple of times due to a part that fell off (I couldn't identify if the suspect part was from the case or from the controller), neither did it fail with large scorch marks on the power connector. That said, the original rheobus didn't run a failed fan unnoticed for a couple of days overloading it, so I suppose credit where it's due, the failure of the extreme is perhaps unsurprising.
The original rheobus LEDs are bright enough to light a standard sized room to the point where you can read a book, away from the light source, they put out as much light as perhaps a 20W bulb would in a desklamp. Don't look directly at them, you probably would damage your eyes temporarily.
The extreme LEDs are less obtrusive as they're filtered by the dials themselves, but still annoying to see in the background if at full brightness (based on set fan voltage).
Meanwhile the VFDs on the scythes, while not exactly dim, are far from obtrusive, producing similar light to the display on a VCR or DVD player.

 

Rather than chance obnoxious LED's, I'll take your recommendation for the Kaze controller. They're very similarly priced If I need more fan control later, I'll deal with it then. Besides, if I'm not mistaken, I can wire in two fans per channel. Provided it doesn't breach the limitations of the channel

 

I ran four fans off one channel before without incident. Of course, the rpm sensing capabilities of the Kazemaster mean I'm more likely not to do such a thing, regardless of current limitations.

 

I pulled the LED's out of my Rheobus and have no complaints at all.

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Recently I've been having this issue when switching to/from full screen applications or when you lock the computer/hit crtl+alt+del etc. the system kinda locks up and takes a long time (10-15s) to change what's displayed with both monitors black the majority of the time. Sequence tends to go: system goes unresponsive -> right monitor goes black -> main monitor goes black -> right monitor displays again -> main monitor displays again -> system becomes responsive again. Nothing new has been installed and restarting normally fixes the problem for a few hours.

If anyone has any idea as to what's going on I'd appreciate your input as I'm pretty stumped.

TIA

redmaw

 

Hmm, sounds like the graphics driver isn't mode switching properly. Maybe try a graphics driver update first.

 

Thank you sam. Just updated back in Feburary so I'll try that, hopefully it'll will work.

 

You guys ever use these to mount your fans? I decided not to. I used the standard fan screws. My brothers computer is very quiet now. Almost silent. An 800Rpm scythe cooling the HDD bay, and an 80mm nexus exhausting the system. And of course the 400W corsair exhausting.

I'm now thinking that the 1090t purchase is unjustified. I won't get as much as i'd like for the 965 phenom II. Meaning I'd be paying more for the 1090t than I can afford right now. The 965 seems to be averaging barely over 100USD. Factor in Ebay fees, and it's rather discouraging. I'm now thinking I'll turn my attention to the northbridge cooling. I don't like the temps I'm seeing while running X264, and I'm only allowing 3 cores. The CPU itself remains respectable at high usage, but the Northbridge comes close to 50C. Given my past luck with chipsets, I don't like it
Given Bulldozer will make its debut in less than a year(?) I think I'll attempt to remain patient. I know I'm gonna want one, whether I upgrade to 1090t or not.

 

Try what Russ and I did and mount an AMD HSF fan on your Northbridge. It tucks really nicely into the bracket for the Coolit between the screw pegs and the main body of the pump, facing down towards the chipset heatsink. And it secures perfectly with a single zip tie around the frame of the fan and under the pump bracket. I can even take the Coolit block off, with it still attached. Remember all 3 of us are using roughly the same board, so I know it can work for you.

Because the surface area of the fan is so small, It doesn't interfere with my top exhaust or affect my CPU temps. Also compared to the rest of my system it's silent. Forget the exact temps but my chipset used to reach the mid 50s under load. Now it never tops 45~ish and idles at about 30-35.

Using Everest I was able to figure out what my temp sensors are in HWMonitor. Sensor one is labeled "Motherboard", two is labeled "CPU" and three is labeled "Chipset". I take CPU to mean the on-board CPU temp, and chipset is obviously my Northbridge. Wondering what Motherboard could mean.

Everest actually puts the label on motherboard but not on chipset. So I only knew for sure Sensor three was my chipset when it was the sensor that responded from adding a fan.

 

50C for a chipset is fine as long as you don't exceed it.
Those rubber fan mounts are very variable in performance. Sometimes they work well, other times they're completely useless.

 

Yeah AFAIK up to 55-60 is just fine as long as it's not runaway heat(ie mid 50s and still climbing). It's only a real problem if the case is low airflow, which can allow pockets of heat to build up.

The rubber fan mounts are hit and miss. They use similar mounts to attach the fans to the Arctic Freezer which works very well. In my experience though, case fans work best when suspended from rubber bands

 

Oman7,

My NB never goes higher than 39C. It's got to get really warm in here before the CPU get's past 40C, like say above 29C (85F). That's encoding, but if I stress test all 6 cores at 100% the CPU will get to 47C on a hot 100F+ day! I have no idea why it runs so much cooler than the 955BE did. I've checked all over the motherboard with the infrared Thermal Probe, and the heat just isn't there, and the 1090T is clocked 200Mhz higher than the 955BE was! All the temps are within half a degree of what Everest is reporting. Much less heat coming out of the radiator too. Same wattage, so I have no idea why, but it's not an error with the thermal sensors!

Loving the new Monitor! I hope the PSU show's tomorrow. Lately Newegg has been confirming the credit card before shipping, so everything takes a day longer now! It will be here by Tuesday!

Russ

 

My 955 runs just as cool. I left Two Worlds 2 open over night on a busy city scene and it topped at 50*C at the cores, 46-47 at the board. Prime95 will do about the same thing!

More alarming was my top video card hitting 83*C as it usually hovers in the mid 70s. I guess 8+ hours of straight graphics load will do that! lol Even better when I woke up I continued to play the game for another 4 hours problem-free. Now THAT'S what I call stability! Only wish the cards scaled their cooling more evenly. The most often case is that my top card will be idling some 5-10*C hotter, but with the fan 400RPM lower than the bottom one. Currently: Top Card 44*C, Bottom card 35*C

At least power play is scaling evenly for once! LOL

 

Thanks for the info guys. I've seen the rubber mounts on the 64 pro. Fact of the matter is, I listed it on ebay. Though one of the armatures is broken. Which doesn't seem to hinder it's abilities. I'm also selling the tuniq. The coolit is all I need anymore.

I've tried to position fans near my northbridge in the past. No dice. Perhaps the voltage I run it at, needs more assistance than a fan can provide. I recall russ recommending my removing the thermal tape. Perhaps I will take a closer look next weekend, when I open my case again.

 

Here's my Current temps and voltages. Outside temps are 80F, and it's 76 inside at the moment! Hot sun today!



CPUz



Oman7,

I removed those blue covers from both the NB and the VRMs, and replaced the Thermal tape with Ceramique for the NB and VRMs where the cooler mounts to the motherboard!

Russ

 

Let me get this straight. You replaced the thermal tape with Ceramique paste, and eliminated the blue cover entirely? Ahh...I like the blue LOL! Nah, I rarely see it...

Little off subject:
What would be the best thread, for helping me remote connect to my brothers computer?

 

Removed the blue covers as well but kept the thermal tape in place. Will have to look into it but I really can't be bothered for a full teardown right now