Small upgrade to Htpc

ScBHavoK

ScBHavoK

ScBHavoK

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Joined
24 Mar 2009
Posts
152
Location
Newcastle Upon Tyne
Looking to upgrade my cpu, mobo and main hard drive but possibly other components also. Main reason for upgrade is starting to lock up and gets hot and noisy quite quick

My current spec:

Asus M4A88TD-V evo/usb3 880g am3 atx mobo. Upgrade
Amd Phenom 2 X4 955 black ed 3.2G (stock fan). Upgrade
8GB (2x 4gb) Corsair vengeance ddr3 pc3-15000C9 1866MHz. Hopefully keep?
G force 8800GT (512mb). Lose
Samsung spinpoint F3 1 Tb sata2 Hd (os). Lose
Sony Dvd Rw. Keep
Coolermaster GX650w Psu ( i think 80 bronze cert?). Hopefully keep?
Cooltek G3 Htpc case. Keep
Windows 7 HP 64 Bit. Keep

I use the pc mainly for photo editing, Photoshop and if quiet enough kodi for streaming (no gaming) ps4 for that ;)

I have been looking through the forums and other sites for ideas and like the look and price! Of the pentium G3258 socket 1150. But others mention am1 CPUs for better graphics?
I would like the system to run a lot cooler if possible (currently 48oC idle)and quieter!

Also been looking at the Samsung 250gb ssd for running os and a few programmes

Hoping not to spend too much preferably under £200 but can spend more if need be.

Thanks
 
Last edited:
lude1962 said:
Main reason for upgrade is starting to lock up and gets hot and noisy quite quick

the last time you cleaned the cpu heatsink was.....
Click to expand...

About 3 month ago when I changed case to the cooltek case
I blow dust out of the heatsink best I could and cleaned the fan blades of dust (probably 4-5 yrs worth) :eek:

mickyflinn said:
How many case fans do you have for airflow ?
Click to expand...

Just the one 120mm case fan next to the cpu I think taking heat out of the case
 
How much gap between the dvd and heatsink?
Did you take the heatsink off , and if you did. did you use new thermal paste?

EDIT: your board specs,
Integrated ATI Radeon™ HD 4250 GPU
Multi-VGA output support : HDMI/DVI/RGB ports
Maximum shared memory of 1024 MB
SidePort Memory - onboard 128MB DDR3 1333 memory
Dual independent displays support with HDMI/DVI and D-Sub
Hardware Decode Acceleration for H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2
Blu-ray playback support *1
Supports DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 2.0, Shader Model 4.1, Universal Video Decoder (UVD) 2.0

you dont need the 8800 gpu, that will be pumping quite a bit of heat into the case, and if its the big monster I've seen in the photos, it will mess up the airflow inside the case
 
Last edited:
lude1962 said:
How much gap between the dvd and heatsink?
Did you take the heatsink off , and if you did. did you use new thermal paste?
Click to expand...

quite close!

IMG_0404.jpg


Never had the heatsink off
 
not too bad, you need to move the fan to the cpu side and have it as exhaust, that whopper of a gpu will be blocking its airflow where it is.
 
lude1962 said:
not too bad, you need to move the fan to the cpu side and have it as exhaust, that whopper of a gpu will be blocking its airflow where it is.
Click to expand...

The fan is right beside the cpu? set as an exhaust i think

One of the main reasons i was going to upgrade was so i could get rid of that gfx card and just use onboard gfx. So there will be a lot more airflow in the case. Also use an ssd drive instead as this one is quite noisy at times.

Im quite suprised actually just looked at the temps and im getting 30oC cpu and 33oC system (lowest iv seen) but just realised the top of the case is off from when i took pics :rolleyes:
 
Anybody recommend an upgrade then?

Been looking at an acer revo one rl85 i3 machine its £199.99 anybody have one or recommend it?

Right on my budget and is already loaded to go, so could possibly sell my system to offset cost

If I was to sell my Htpc how much would you think I could get for it?
 
ScBHavoK said:
Anybody recommend an upgrade then?

Been looking at an acer revo one rl85 i3 machine its £199.99 anybody have one or recommend it?

Right on my budget and is already loaded to go, so could possibly sell my system to offset cost

If I was to sell my Htpc how much would you think I could get for it?
Click to expand...

Interested in this too as I'm looking at the same one.
 
welshdragon said:
Interested in this too as I'm looking at the same one.
Click to expand...

Still unsure what to do tbh. Can't make my mind up on getting the Acer revo or upgrade what I have.

Currently not able to use pc at the minute due to tv upgrade and g card not supporting the res :(
Also just got a new tv unit from ikea and my case don't fit lmao

If I could get a cpu (graphics onboard suitable for tv) mobo memory
and small case (no taller than 320mm) for around £200 I might go
down that route instead.

The tv is a panasonic ax902 b 55" 4k tv
 
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welshdragon said:
Interested in this too as I'm looking at the same one.
Click to expand...

I just got the celeron version with 60gig ssd drive and 2gb ram running Windows 8.1 with free upgrade to w10 from a large supermarket! for £129 but only cost me £99 after using points.
So far I can't fault it its rapid loading things, silent ,displays brilliant on my tv(after adjusting settings) and does exactly what I need
Might upgrade the memory to 8gig which I've priced around £30ish. Cheap as chips!

Just put my old unit up on gumtree for £150. Reasonable do you think?
 
Not long moved house and tried setting the old machine up and all works fine with graphics card installed but removed and getting no pic from onboard gfx
had a look in bios before gfx card removal and is set for onboard graphics aswell as card. Any ideas?

Thanks
 
Someone mentioned earlier the Mobo has integrated graphics 4250 can anyone clarify this? And any idea why no picture from board?

Also added another 2 sticks 4gb ram but only reading 12gb installed

Over the Christmas hols I’m going to pull to bits and put in a larger chieftec case I found in loft and sell the one pictured
 
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