New Rig, possible overheating.

the_syco

Hi,
Recently got a new rig, and lately, whilst playing a game called Trackmania, the game has being crashing to desktop, or freezing the PC. Similair problems, but not as severe, have been happening whilst playing BF2, such as the odd freezing of the game.

I think it may be overheating, but before I splash out one or two hundred on a water cooling system, I want to be sure.

My specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB - Stock fan
Corsair Value S. PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Kit
EPoX EP-9NPA+ SLI
Nvidia 7800GT 256MB
Q-TEC 450W Dual Fan PSU.

At the moment, according to Ghost Monitor, the temp of the mobo is 37C/98F. No idea if thats any help, but it may.

Any help would be nice. I'm using an old'ish small case, about 20cm*40cm*33cm(W,D,H) in size.

So, would extra fans help, or would the best option be water cooling. And if it is watercooling, wot package would be best? Keep it cheap, if possible.

Thanks.

Oh, and I've left the side of the case off the last few days. Would this help/hinder it?

AnCapaillMor

37's fine, great in fact. how many other devices have you in the system?, my old system could'nt handle 4 drives, 2 cds and the video card on a 400w psu, and that was an AGP card, PCI-E uses up a hell of a lot more power. If you have alot of devices try plugging out one and see what happens.

djmarkus

Q-TEC 450W Dual Fan PSU.

Theres ur problem, q-tec = shíte.

You need to get a better psu im afraid

the_syco

djmarkus wrote:

Theres ur problem, q-tec = shíte.

You need to get a better psu im afraid

Why is it shíte? Is the fan not the best, or what? And what would be a better option. And please don't tell me the €200 option.

AnCapaillMor

Q-tec are'nt that bad, how many devices have yo u got altogether, could be the card is getting insufficent power.

TerrorFirmer

Didn't you have this same problem with an ati x700 card? Was it the same psu?

In the last few months you've gone from playing BF2 with a Geforce 4ti without textures and all stuff on low to a 7800....must be some difference there! What happened your x700?

Q-Tec aren't terrible for general use but definately not recommended for high end gaming of any sort, especially if you're running power hungry things like a 7800 (part of the problem might be the card not getting enough power, what else have you in there?)....even if the psu output is adequate to meet the requirements you're better off getting a better build psu....I'm sure all the lads here can recommend you a good one...I can't talk with my stock DELL psu

duridian

Q-tec aren't bad, Q-tec are appalling!
Stock Dell psu would be miles better than a '550W' Q-tec not to mind a alleged '450W'. I'm no major fan of Dell by the way, but Q-tec make the most s*** products that money can buy. I wouldn't consider that Q-tec safe to power a PentiumII with a TNT2 card not to mind the rig youare trying to run off it.
Why did you go and fork out what looks to be at least €1000+ on good pc parts and then risk blowing them asunder by trying to run them off a Q-tec power supply?(this has happened to people, PSU dies and kills other components along with it, overvolting or something like that)
For that rig you should really be looking at a minimum of 450W froma reputable brand of power supply like Antec, OCZ, Enermax, Tagan, Fortron, Zalman or Seasonic and even Hiper if >500W. In fact pretty much any brand would be better than what you have at present. Does that Q-tec even have a 24pin motherboard connector? That motherboard of yours would really need a 24pin (ATX 2.0) style connection. Especially more so since the card you have is a fairly hefty model and the extra 4 pins are supposed to be related to powering the pci express slot(s).
I would strongly advise you to ditch the Q-tec psu, it is glaringly obvious that it is the weak link in your pc. I'm not gonna say spend €200 but you would want to be spending at least €80-90 on it if you want a decent reliable power supply.

the_syco

HavoK wrote:

Didn't you have this same problem with an ati x700 card? Was it the same psu?

In the last few months you've gone from playing BF2 with a Geforce 4ti without textures and all stuff on low to a 7800....must be some difference there! What happened your x700?

x700 worked for a bit, then stopped. Sent it back to whom I bought it off, and a few weeks later, the same thing happened to him, so he RMA'ed it.

And yea. The textures were nice. Only problem is, tho, is that my GUID is on punkbusters black list for using the shader hack (only way that BF2 would work on the GeForce4).

duridian wrote:

Why did you go and fork out what looks to be at least €1000+ on good pc parts and then risk blowing them asunder by trying to run them off a Q-tec power supply?

Forgot to buy a PSU, and money was a bit short at the time. Ran a PSU calc, the numbers worked, so I used it.

duridian wrote:

Antec, OCZ, Enermax, Tagan, Fortron, Zalman or Seasonic

Looking at some of the stuff on Komplett.ie PSU's, I see some nice one's. It'd be nice if ye could advise me more on what to look for.

duridian wrote:

Especially more so since the card you have is a fairly hefty model and the extra 4 pins are supposed to be related to powering the pci express slot(s)

Well, as the 7800GT uses power directly from the PSU, it worked with a 20 pin connection.

=-=

Cheers for your advice. I'm going to look into it, and proberly buy a PSU before the weekend. Untill then, no more gaming on that machine, as I don't want to risk it.

Oh, and since I'll be buying something off kompett, is there any point in buying a watercooler, and if so, is there any that will take the heat off my CPU, and graphics card, that I wouldn't have to be an expert to set it up?

duridian

Well one PSU which I can recommend, as I have it myself and am very happy with it is this 480W Tagan.
It is a rock solid power supply, and has just about evry possible connection you could need (24 pin ATX which is easy converted to 20 pin if needs be by sliding off the 4extra pins, 4x SATA power, 2x 6pin PCI-E gfx auxilliary power connectors on heavy dedicated cables (designed for SLi) , 1x dedicated molex on heavy cable for older AGP gfx auxilliary power, 2x 4pin P$ type auxilliary power connectors which can also be clipped together (to make some type of server power connection that I'm less familiar with), about 6 regular drive molex and berg(floppy type) power connectors.
Othewr models on Komplett I would consider if you were going a little higher in price, would be:
the 580W Tagan which is also modular.
the 500W Seasonic, I hear only good things about Seasonic
this new Antec 500W, it's an Antec so it should be good. Also I hear they've made the fan quieter in these than in previous models.
Things to look for:
Nowadays you should be looking for a PSU which meets ATX 2.0 or higher specification (eg. ATX 2.2). These power supplies use improved technology which among other things have more power available on the 12V. i believe they did this as the increase in 12volt load has skyrocketed in recent years due to such items as high power graphics cards, the increase in the number of cooling fans, and poossibly because more and more people are using more than 1 hard drive (for example the only voltage on a 6pin PCI-E graphics auxilliary power coneector is 12v, delivered by 3 of the pins, 2 are ground and the remaining one is just a blank). Virtually of this type of power supply will have a 24pin motherboard power connector.
I consider that SLi capability is a good thing in a power supply even, if like me you don't actually use it for this. It's better to have extra power avaiulable and not need it, than to need more power and not have it.
A modular PSU is one which comes with detachable power cables, usually the only permanently attached cable is the motherboard ATX connector. Other cables can be attached as you need them. The advantage here being that you won't have unused cables to tidy up.
Lastly since practically all the good brands of 24pin PSUs have a an easy convert system for use with 20pin motherboards, there is really no reason to buy a 20pin PSU anymore. For example with my Tagan you can slip the 4 extra pins off the ATX connector to make it fit a 20pin motherboard. (The first 20pins in a 24pin connector are the same pinout as the older 20pin connection, hence the easy adaptation.). I recently fitted a Hiper Type-R 580W that a friend had bought and it had a similar setup to the Tagan so I would say that several brands are now doing this. Even if they don't, the earlier approach was that they come with one of these adaptors
Well that's my two cents. Good luck with whichever model you decide on. Let us know if you have any other questions.

Edit: by the way I don't think you really need water cooling, it isn't really a thing I would be as familiar with as some of the others here so I'll let them advise on that.It may be an idea to get a few case fans though if you don't already have them, to improve the cooling and airflow of your case. Remember big and slow is better than small and fast when it comes to fans so if you have a place in you case for a 120MM then go for it.

the_syco

duridian wrote:

Edit: by the way I don't think you really need water cooling, it isn't really a thing I would be as familiar with as some of the others here so I'll let them advise on that.It may be an idea to get a few case fans though if you don't already have them, to improve the cooling and airflow of your case. Remember big and slow is better than small and fast when it comes to fans so if you have a place in you case for a 120MM then go for it.

Excellent. Erm, just wonering: should I just get fan's to suck out air, or should I get one for sucking in air at the front?

duridian

Ideally you should have roughly the same amount of air being taken in at the front and/or sidepanel as is being expelled out the back, but you don't need to be terribly scientific about it. The design of your case can have a big impact on this, some cases you will only need a rear fan, others(especially if the case is a bit cramped for space inside) one either at the front or in the sidepanel as well is advisable to help bring cool air inside more quickly.(if the case has an intake vent in the side, Intel were making a lot of hoo-haa about "Thermally advantaged chassis" a while back, when they first released Prescott processors, so a lot of manufacturers started putting vents into the side panel.)

Edit: Just had a quick glance back at that pic of your motherboard. It looks like the motherboard has a fan connection for both a front and rear chassis fan, so if you were to go with 2 fans, then the motherboard could probably adjust the speeds according to what it felt was necessary at the time. ie. rather than having the fans going full pelt when the system is running cool. This would require fans with 3 wires; plus, ground and speed sensor. Most fans nowadays would have a speed sensor anyway, but tis something to watch just in case. Also for the motherboard fan connections the fans should have 3 pin connectors.