Yet another "help with a build" thread!

kaimera · 18-03-2009 9:03pm

bollocks. the case is a bit tight at the minute and ripping out the mobo isn't exactly a 10 minute job.

I shall have to study it moar when I get home.

Gonzovision · 18-03-2009 11:33pm

Have you ordered your heatsink yet? If not take a look at the thermalright ultra 120. I have been using it on my i7 and my temps are around 24 on idle and were still under 50 on full load o/c to 3.2ghz

tazire · 20-03-2009 2:26pm

i use the coolermaster v8 with my i7. getting load temps of ave 65 at 3.5... only thing is its a monster of a cooler. it barely fits in my antec 900 2 case. but i love it. prime95 ran over night wit no problems. and a temps no higher than 68.

kaimera · 10-06-2009 2:47pm

hai!

ok, had some trouble with my mobo and a bad flash but huzzah, MSI finally have it fixed and coming back to me whenever.

anyway, it looks like I have to take a saw to my antec 900 case cos cable management is not a strong point of the case at all.

i was looking for shorter sata cables too but if I can cut enough proper holes in the case then the cable length wont matter.

hope to get the 4870 flashed as well; it was running quite hot even without the turbo mode being enabled on the card.

new HSF purchased from ocuk; big **** off tower with dual fans. Mammoth hsf. just barely clears the nearest RAM slot.

also have 6*2gb of faster ddr3 to go in as well.

and maybe a new 250gb hdd.

i want it to go right this time!

leninbenjamin · 10-06-2009 3:52pm

kaimera wrote: »

hai!

new HSF purchased from ocuk; big **** off tower with dual fans. Mammoth hsf. just barely clears the nearest RAM slot.

what one did you go for? I just installed a Noctua in my system and it's pretty much the same story

kaimera · 10-06-2009 3:55pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

what one did you go for? I just installed a Noctua in my system and it's pretty much the same story

aye, the Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366)

~83euro but by all accounts an awesome awesome hsf.

think it was yerself I saw buying it and went for it as well!

leninbenjamin · 10-06-2009 4:19pm

kaimera wrote: »

aye, the Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366)

~83euro but by all accounts an awesome awesome hsf.

think it was yerself I saw buying it and went for it as well!

cool, I've just gotten around to assembling the rig last night so i haven't been able to evaluate it fully yet. Idling at 37 at the mo' but the room its in is a bit warm.

Have you installed it yet? I found it fiddly to put in place, and I've a full tower with plenty of space. The mounting bracket and all that was straight forward, but attaching the fans was a bit of a bitch, those little wire clips they give are so temperamental. I've seen on some forums they recommend using cable ties instead, especially if space is tight.

kaimera · 10-06-2009 4:28pm

haven't yet cos I got had just got it when the board when tits up and i had to RMA it.

it whill be fun trying to get it into the 900 case tho!

might try fix the fans before I mount it on the board (when it arrives!)

I assume you have both fans in a pull-push config? by all accounts i've read the best way to have it. hopefully I wont have to take out the rear case fan to fit it in but I think it'll clear it well enough and the case fan will help draw out the air again from the hsf fan.

all going well, i'll have the front 2 case fans going at low rpm, the top 200mm going at low/medium and the rear going at low along with the noctua fans at the stock speed.

she should OC quite a bit then but i just want a slight enough OC and plenty of cooling.

leninbenjamin · 10-06-2009 4:34pm

kaimera wrote: »

might try fix the fans before I mount it on the board (when it arrives!)

Very difficult to do, as the fans obstruct the mounting screws! I'm not sure it's even possible.

kaimera wrote: »

I assume you have both fans in a pull-push config? by all accounts i've read the best way to have it. hopefully I wont have to take out the rear case fan to fit it in but I think it'll clear it well enough and the case fan will help draw out the air again from the hsf fan.

yup, that's what i've done, orientated to the rear exhaust fan with about 2 inches between them. If you want i can post up some pics later on?

kaimera · 10-06-2009 4:36pm

pics would be awesome

Solitaire · 10-06-2009 6:22pm

leninbenjamin wrote:

Idling at 37 at the mo' but the room its in is a bit warm.

You're mistaken - Noctua coolers aren't meant to keep the CPU cool, they're meant to keep it kinda lukewarm - but in utter blissful silence

Whenever you see hideous flesh-coloured fans you know you're in for a wonderfully quiet experience!

Mmm... Hideous flesh-coloured fans... oh well, at least Noctua's got the whole brand-recognition thing sorted

leninbenjamin · 10-06-2009 6:29pm

Solitaire wrote: »

You're mistaken - Noctua coolers aren't meant to keep the CPU cool, they're meant to keep it kinda lukewarm - but in utter blissful silence

oh, i know it's not the best on the market for cooling, but it still gets some pretty damn good results in reviews, only one or two degrees off the top performers in some charts! very happy with volume levels so far though and i haven't even put on the low noise adaptors (i.e. less RPM).

it is bleedin hideous though, but it's beatifully hideous

Solitaire · 10-06-2009 6:55pm

I said "lukewarm". With i7 under the hood most fairly decent coolers barely manage "piping hot"

leninbenjamin · 10-06-2009 6:59pm

Solitaire wrote: »

I said "lukewarm". With i7 under the hood most fairly decent coolers barely manage "piping hot"

lol, now i get ya.

leninbenjamin · 11-06-2009 12:29am

ok, back with the pics (had to borrow a camera

)

here just a few showing the size of it in the system (please ignore the dodgy cabling, first build and all that

). pretty damn big, not much clearance around the sides in mid towers, accessing the 8pin ATX connector could be painful.

and a couple of the mounting brackets and backplate just because...

anyway as to what we were talking about, here's how the clips should look. fairly fiddly to put on, hard enough to but both ends on together with the size of it, and one end can easily snap off while trying to do the other...

worth while noting that pic, as the instructions aren't too clear as to what way they should go. Also, they are the things most likely to cause headaches going into the case, as they extend a bit further than the dimensions suggest and could easily interfere with the exhaust fans. That's when cable ties will do

Also, as you can see the clearance between the fans and screws isn't great, very hard to get at the pins that hold it once the fans are on (the spring thingies you can barely see), so the fans will have to be mounted after putting it in the motherboard.

kaimera · 03-07-2009 3:12pm

went to piece it together last night with the board MSI fixed...

no POST, just reboots itself after a few mins.

looking at getting a refund for the MSI board and getting a new x58 mobo so I need recommendations.

a bit of OC will be done.

I've 12Gb of RAM to go in it and a noctua HSF to go on the chip so will try push it a bit.

I dont want MSI again, this is a disaster.

somakasvh · 03-07-2009 5:24pm

kaimera wrote: »

went to piece it together last night with the board MSI fixed...

no POST, just reboots itself after a few mins.

Did you remember to pop the back up battery out and clear the CMOS for around half a minute (to be safe)?

That saved me from an RMA when I was about to give up after manually flashing my BIOS chip using an EEPROM programmer.

kaimera · 03-07-2009 6:21pm

it's got a clear CMOS button on it which we tried but no luck.

tried with the gpu in the other pci-e slot

tried differerent ram in the slot1

resetting cmos

not luck

somakasvh · 03-07-2009 6:34pm

If I remember correctly, I needed the combination of using the clear CMOS jumper and removing the battery to eventually get mine working...

Do you have a case speaker to listen to the BIOS beep code?

kaimera · 03-07-2009 6:41pm

somakasvh wrote: »

If I remember correctly, I needed the combination of using the clear CMOS jumper and removing the battery to eventually get mine working...

Do you have a case speaker to listen to the BIOS beep code?

ha, i dont, pulled apart boxes looking for one last night

it would be helpful but i think at this stage i wont find the speaker

kaimera · 03-07-2009 7:42pm

SHE LIVES!

kudos to you somakasvh.

popped out the battery for a bit; cleared CMOS; put in all 6 sticks of RAM; gpu in PCI-E 1 and the bitch booted!

Now to put it in the case.

thank ****. I had really given up on msi :embarressed:

somakasvh · 03-07-2009 8:41pm

You're welcome. I was one step away from RMA too.

kaimera · 07-07-2009 9:24am

hai

So my OS drive is clicking a bit and taking it's time to seek (it's a wd sata) so I'm looking at pulling out the 3 drives for a ssd and prolly 2*1tb drives.

on the ssd front...the intel is still #1 with the ocz vertex #2?

from anadtech

1) The X25-M continues to be my top pick.
2) The Samsung based drives (e.g. Corsair 256GB) offer great compatibility (that's a newer version of what Apple uses in its MacBook lineup) but their worst case performance isn't as good as the Indilinx or Intel drives. This won't be an issue for everyone but it does leave a sour taste in my mouth.
3) The Indilinx based drives (e.g. OCZ Vertex) seem to provide the best of both worlds between the X25-M and the Samsung based drives. You get higher peak transfer rates (like the Samsung) but you get better random write performance (like the X25-M).

komplett have the vertex for 199 for the 60gb which is perfect for an OS/app drive. 30gb isnt enough.

pixmania have the ocz agility series which is more expensive than the vertex.

is there something coming in the immediate short term that I should be aware of?

as for 1tb internal drives, any recommendations? for games and for media

[edit]

ocz vertex
samsung 1tb * 2

waiting on the housemates to see if they want anything but 357 for 2tb + ssd is pretty mint i think

PogMoThoin · 07-07-2009 9:07pm

I've 2 of those 1TB F1 sata's in this pc and another 750GB in the pc downstairs for over a yr, can vouch for them being reliable and rapid too

kaimera · 08-07-2009 12:52am

One other thing; my 4870 was getting very hot to touch under any sort of load.

turns out the fans arent dynamically spinning up so the headsinks were very damn hot.

was getting major white spots in CSS @ 2560*1600

(currently have the use of a 30" moniter for the new few weeks :pac:)

went into ati cat centre and bumped up the core/mem speeds and put the fan manually @ 100%; huge increase in fps and no more white spots!

really need to flash the bios on it and create a profile to get the fans to kick in properly.

ssd + other hdds taking a back seat for this moment; need to wait for another few things

Gonzales24 · 08-07-2009 11:24am

ok.
e8500 u can get up to 4.4ghz , for the same prise about u could get a quad Q8300 up to 3.3Ghz.
theQ6660 even 3.7Ghz to 4.1ghz i saw.

dont go with the zalmann, there are crap... go with mugen2 or titan fenrir TTC-NK85TZ... u will get the best temps and planty room for OC.

kaimera · 08-07-2009 11:36am

Gonzales24 wrote: »

ok.
e8500 u can get up to 4.4ghz , for the same prise about u could get a quad Q8300 up to 3.3Ghz.
theQ6660 even 3.7Ghz to 4.1ghz i saw.

dont go with the zalmann, there are crap... go with mugen2 or titan fenrir TTC-NK85TZ... u will get the best temps and planty room for OC.

went with the i7-920 + accessories. thanks tho

AlmightyCushion · 08-07-2009 10:22pm

I've the 750GB samsung and haven't had a problem with it. Intel are meant to be releasing/announcing (can't remember which) an ssd using 32nm flash in the next few weeks. They're meant to go up to 320GBs and I think they said that the 32nm flash will help to reduce costs so you could be talking about a cheaper version of the intel ones.

kaimera · 12-07-2009 12:06am

quick question for those in the know;

i posted already that my 4870 is running more than a little hot in games without me manually upping the fan speed.

my avg room temp is quite hot; i mean without my pc running the room is very warm anyway but how much of an affect would it have on over all system temp?

I put the side casing on earlier today and the temps shot up by double digits for cpu/sys/IOH/gpu @ idle so the side casing is off.

the moniter i have atm is also pushing out a lot of heat.

would lowering the room temp help much or should i strip apart the rig and test the thermal paste slash cooling?

somakasvh · 12-07-2009 1:51am

I have a 4870 with a similar cooler and it kicks some amount of heat into the case. I think the problem is that the fans blow directly onto the card, so the air isn't properly exhausted.

Maybe fitting a 120mm fan onto the side panel mount could improve airflow in the vicinity of the GPU.

Yet another "help with a build" thread!

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