Client gaming pc

[ohio_grad_06]

Hey folks, what's up? I have a client who brought in a gaming pc, fairly simple.

AMD FX 8350
Board was originally an ASRock 970 extreme 4 with 4+1 power phasing and not much cooling on the vrm's.
8gb gskill ddr3 pc2400
1tb Western Digital drive
Raidmax ACX 700 watt power supply(25 amps on 2 12v+ rails)
Geforce GTX 760
DIYPC case similar to this one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353026

Client brought it in, saying it would freeze after about 30 minutes. Ok. Fired it up, opened up a temp monitoring program, yep, cpu seemed to be overheating. Told client let's get a new board as the 4+1 power phasing on the board is not great anyway.

Upgraded board to a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3. Has 8+2 power phasing, should be a bit more suitable for the 8350 which is a 125 watt cpu.

Also went with an upgraded cpu cooler. I got this one. Thankfully I do most shopping at Microcenter, so got this for about 30 bucks. Normally, I would have reached for the cooler master hyper 212 evo, but the case is not wide enough and it would not have fit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103084

So we got the old board pulled, put the new one in. Install the cpu, paste with arctic silver 5, install the new cooler, have everything as cable managed as it can be. Go to reinstall windows, few minutes later during the copy, bam. Lock up and blue screen. Ok. Restart, back to bios, set to optimized defaults. System runs for about 45 minutes, and bam locks up.

Keep in mind, new board and cpu cooler. Bad thing on this case is size, and only 2 fans. Which I'm not sure how good they are. Say to myself is this heat related? I pull over a desk fan, turn it full blast, and run a 5 pass intel cpu burn test.

That works fine. I'm then able to work normally with the side of the case off and the fan blowing inside. Monitoring temps in the background. Right now I've got the side of the case off, fan off. Things are running fine it seems.

Ran memtest 86 and that seemed ok, may need to do a longer run on that. Ran gsmart control on a short test and the drive seems healthy. As I said, it showed fine with intel cpu burn. So it seems now when both sides are on, it's possibly overheating. Thinking maybe upgrade the rear exhaust fan, and install a couple of pci slot cooling fans, as literally, there is no other place for fans in that case.

Thoughts?

 

[Krynn72]

Are you sure its the CPU still, and not the GPU thats overheating now?

 

[gikstar]

One of the Comments about this case on Newegg: Cons: terrible airflow, i have a msi r9 280 in there that barely fit and the fans are so weak that air doesn't flow through enough and my cpu and gpu overheats

Most decent cases have the ability to mount a fan on the side panel... look to replace the fans or the case itself.

First error... using AMD instead of Intel 'IMHO', second, too poor a quality of a case... but what can you expect for under $50

 

[frase]

I would check that the cpu fan is seated correctly, last thing you want is bent pins on cpu slot. Seriously running a desk fan into a case is not a good idea. Unless your in an air conditioned environment; as all you are doing is pushing more hot air in and it will circulate around the heat itself.

Look at Fractal Design cases - it's what I use personally. They have great fans and placement where it is needed most, Front,Rear, Top and most importantly for High GPU beneath to push air up and intake on rear takes it out.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Got a chance to look at things. Like I said, the kid built this himself originally. I'm an AMD fan myself. But anyway, new cooler actually uses the stock bracket, Pretty certain it's seated properly. I actually took the desk fan away and it seemed to run fine with the side off the case. I did notice when I ran a stress test, there seems to be a hot spot near the vrm's on the board, between where the cpu cooler is and where the rear exhaust fan is.

With the side of the case off, I re ran the cpu stress test(without the desk fan), and did a 10 pass test of intel cpu burn. Stayed up fine. Hottest the cpu got was 49 degrees celcius.

I want to say the gpu was in the 40's for most of it. Probably need to run furmark on that. I think I'll ask him about another case, if that's not an option or he just has to have that particular case, then my other option I think would be to replace the rear exhaust fan with a better higher flow fan. Also, where his video card sits, there is an open slot in the case above it, right below the cpu, so I think I could install a pci slot cooling fan there. Something like this. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=pci_slot_cooler-_-35-888-309-_-Product

Maybe that would help the airflow. But I do note the stock rear exhuast fan seems weak imho. But that seems to confirm my suspicion. Just not enough air flowing. So either new case or start modding lol.


Desk fan, actually just had the system in my basement over the weekend working a little from home as I had time, so it was nice cool air going into the tower.

Intel vs AMD. Meh. A lot of guys say intel is better. I suppose. My personal system is an AMD 8 core as well, Runs everything I want. They are still good value if you are on a budget, especially if you get a microcenter bundle.

I think gaming wise, what will be interesting is when direct x 12 comes out. Reviews I've read say dx 12 is supposed to scale well with more cores. May make these AMD 8 cores more interesting. But I do wish AMD would compete a little more.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Jackpot! If I can talk the kid into one, I'll probably pick up one of these for him.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/441632/EVO_III_ATX_Mid-Tower_Computer_Case

Diablotek EVO 3, Haven't used that specific one, but used to use the EVO 2 before I could not find them for a while. Thing I like about this case though is the fact that it is only 40 bucks. If it is like the old one, it is at least semi roomy, and comes with 4 case fans preinstalled. One front fan, 2 on top for a blowhole type setup, and one exhaust. I'm think grab one, have the front and 2 on top push air in, and have the exhaust fan pull air out. So 2 fans pulling into that new cpu cooler plus one pulling air out ought to force some cool air near there.

 

[coffee]

IMHO, An AMD Gaming rig screams for liquid cooling. So, Instead of buying the heatsink/fan combo you probably would have been better off with a liquid cooling option. Another thing to check since you replaced the MB is make sure it detects the speed correctly. I built a rig not very long ago with an asus MB and had isssues where it was shutting down. What I noticed was that it was running the processor at 3.4Ghz where the top speed for the processor was 3.2. This was corrected by going into the bios and changing the performance settings.

So, Since this is a gaming rig then I would have told the customer that a Liquid cooling option would be needed. Then I would have also loaded some temp monitoring software and double check that the speed settings are correct.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Maybe not a bad idea on liquid. Double checked the speed settings and that all looks good. The thermal ceiling on these and CPUs is 61 degrees Celsius. With the side of his old case off I only hit 49 during a burn in test, so that should be hotter than it would get during gaming.

But like you said I definitely think there is an airflow issue going on. I'll try to catch up with him and see what he wants to do. Because if he keeps his current case, kind of thinking it will do not do water cooling. So maybe something where we try the new case and if that does not do it, water cooling. Or if cost is a big thing, return the cooler and get the hyper 212 evo which is about the same price as the cooler I've got on it, but had to use the current cooler due to size of his current case.

Thanks for all the input guys. Coffee especially.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Thanks again for all the comments. Need to further test GPU, but got a new case today, the one I linked above, with 4 fans built in. I also took one of his fans and installed on the side blowing air onto the CPU. At idle the CPU is running about 20 degrees celcius. Under a light load, about 30. At full load, it got up to about 56 after about 8-9 passes of intel burn test, but came through stable. I have the 2 fans on top pushing air into the case, the side fan and front fan pushing air into the case, and a rear exhaust fan pulling air out. The system seems much happier now.

Since I've still got this at my home, I'm just going to let it run all night. I set it to not sleep so we'll see if it's still stable in the morning.

Glad this guy is being so understanding. Between the case he used, board, and stock cooling, no wonder that pc had trouble. But think I've about got it beat. If it still gives any trouble, going for a better cpu cooler. But this one may work. Not the greatest cooler I've used, but it does use the stock mounting brackets which is nice. Just glad to finally see the system stable, as this system was fighting me tooth and nail it seemed.

 

[brandonkick]

Couple of comments here:

No offense, but even a gaming system does not require liquid cooling. That's usually reserved for extreme overclocking or those who just want to go that route, basically just a preference. If it's overheating, then you have a few things to check.

Easy to spot stuff, clogged or non running fans. Get those replaced, use good quality fans. Also use 120mm fans where possible. The larger the fan is, the more air it will move and the quieter it will be.

Ensure the fans are oriented properly, you can have every fan oriented to intake and you shouldn't have all the fans oriented to exhaust either. I usually run an intake on the fan spot physically located as far towards the bottom of the case as possible, and the exhaust fan towards the top. Also, make sure you check EVERY fan and not just case fans. Check heatsink fans, GPU fans, any fans on the motherboard and any fans that may be cooling optical / hard drives.

Check the heat sink to make sure the fins aren't clogged with dust and dirt. You said you replaced this one, but always a good thing to check if your not replacing.

If it hasn't been done in a few years, it's not a bad idea to clean off the old thermal compound on the heat sink / cpu and replace with fresh stuff. I prefer the Arctic Cooling MX compounds personally.

One of the only things you really can't see is the airflow of the case. It's harder to spot, but if you've done all the above and it's still running hot then you can do what the OP did... remove the side panel and you can even go so far as to introduce something like a big box fan blowing right at the motherboard. This will show you if the case airflow is the problem.


@ this customers machine

I'd run a stress test for 24 hours, with the side panel back on. The system should be able to handle this just fine.... most systems don't get that warm when idle. I wouldn't want to give it back to him until I knew it was not going to overheat.


@ Intel vs AMD

I've run both. The first system I hand built for myself back in 2006 was an AMD Opteron 165 based system that ran very well for 4 years. Towards the end, the system really started showing its age. The second system I hand built for myself back in 2010 was a first gen core i7 machine. To this day, even stock, the machine feels top tier. Very fast. Now of course, there are things out there that can show me just how old it is... encoding 4K video for example. For me, this machine feels just like they day I built it in terms of speed. The only thing I've upgraded was the hard drive to a Samsung SSD. I plan to run it until the skylake / cannonlake chips come out. I may end up with a haswell based chip (because they will become much cheaper) or I may go brand new with skylake. I don't know. But I do know that I've never once felt let down with the core i7 that I have and my system is going to be 5 years old in three months.

Again, this one is almost a matter of personal preference. The only thing I dislike about my i7 is the triple channel memory controller. It's so much of a PITA to buy memory sticks 1 at a time or in pairs of 3. Seems like pairs of 2 is the cheapest way to get memory.

 

[Ed_Zipper]

Glad this guy is being so understanding.

You are the one being understanding. He screwed the monkey when he configured the machine himself. Sounds like 2- 2.5 hours of labor so far.

 

[jbartlett323]

So don't know if this has anything to do with your problems but....
Just had a friend buy a Cyberpower machine, told him to return it immediately but he didn't. It had the same Gigabyte board you bought, and the same Proc. The problem came in the form of the RAM. His RAM was rated at 2133, but was running at 1066 (no joke). Since the RAM was so seriously underclocked, it was making the system unstable.
Although this board has the setting to enable XMP, it doesn't work. This board (specifically states on website) that it can only supply 1.5v to the RAM, where anything XMP (or really anything over 1600) needs 1.6v and will not run at full speed on this board.
Now RAM can certainly be underclocked without issue, but not that many steps. 1-2 steps, no issue. 3-4 steps, unstable.

Just something to consider and look at!
Also, after getting an AsRock Extreme9 and opening up his memory bandwidth, it increased his temps by like 20c! This really forced him to go water as most tower coolers large enough for the capacity would not fit in his case...
Oh and as an aside, he also had to replace the crappy wanna-be 850w PSU, and add an SSD to an originally $1800 system. Yeah, he feels a bit un-smart about the whole thing....

 

[ohio_grad_06]

On this one the guy got 2400 mhz ram. That didn't seem to stabilize until I just set the bios back to defaults and just let it decide what it wanted to run. With enough airflow it seems much more stable. I looked at it once and it was idle at 14 degrees celcius. It got up to 56 under 100% load, but this was after about 8 passes of intel burn test. Since it has the option for a temp alarm, I think I'm going to run it a bit longer, set the temp alarm to 70 degrees celcius, and tell him he needs to clean it out at least every 6 months with compressed air. But that if it locks up anymore, he can bring it back and we can go liquid cooling on it, which I'd charge him the price of the cooler and maybe 1/2 hour of labor. However, going to run it a good big before he gets it back. I think the temps may drop a hair more as the Arctic Silver 5 I used bakes in as well.

*Edit* I know what you mean about cyberpower. I had a guy bring one of those in. Oh man.

That went as follows.

1. Initially a power supply replacement and video card replacment. Easy enough.
2. He gets it back, 2.5 hours later, he's needing help. Liquid cooler started leaking, fried the motherboard.
3. Replace the motherboard and CPU due to a Microcenter combo and price/performance.
4. Did not know, coolant from the leak had also affected the new video card, which a day or so after he got it back again, sparked and died a horrendous death.
5. Got the system back again. Replaced CPU, ram, and card as well as PSU to be safe.
6. Put it all back together, system was acting whacky. 2nd new video card was bad out of the box.
7, At this point, I wondered if his computer was cursed.
8. Replaced video card again.

Finally after all that, it was happy. All I will say is this, if you have a microcenter near you, USE THEM. I had purchased warranties on everything, and as you can see they came in handy. I rebuilt this box 2-3 times at no extra cost. Gotta love it. To this day, system has not had another issue that I know of.

 

[brandonkick]

Last time I checked, there weren't anywhere near me

To far of a drive. I'd love to have a microcenter, and a fry's.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Too bad. I have microcenter about 40-45 minutes away. But some of the managers know me by name as much as we are in there lol.

But I like buying their warranties for nearly everything, and then if a client has a problem, sure let me return that to my supplier and get a new one for you.

 

[cypress]

Tigerdirect nearest to me is closing up shop now, they are going online only now. It was nice to have a place I could pick up parts without having to order it online. Wish South Florida had a Microcenter as well.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Really? Too bad too. I never did get to go to one of their retail stores, but when I was a kid before getting hooked on Microcenter, I used to order from Tigerdirect. Always good customer service. I prefer dealing with them or Microcenter over newegg. Newegg might be ok on some stuff, but I had issues with them not wanting ship to PO Box, or silly stuff like restock fees if you get parts that are bad from them. Still nice to price match Microcenter to them though.