Going for a Sugo SG01 build :)

skullkid · 1 Nov 2011 at 16:17

Well I’ve been meaning to put together a new build for a while, constantly changing my mind on what I want. I’ve decided I’m going to build a HTPC but will be used for very light gaming (xbox for the main stuff!), general PC use and also as a Bluray player and to be able to stream via HDMI to my plasma + also as a jukebox. It’s to replace my aging Lian Li build with an old XP chip.

Budget wise I haven’t set one, just want value for money and something nice and quick for video conversion.

SG01 w/ 520w Antec Neo Eco modular psu
Asus p8p67-m pro mATX mobo
I5 2500k cpu
Big Shuriken cooler
Crucial M4 128gb SSD
LG BR RW
8gb Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey ram
AMD Radeon 1GB HD 5570

I’ll probably fit a soundcard. I’m not sure how far onboard sound has come but I will be outputting it to a decent AVR and some decent speakers so I think a dedicated PCI soundcard is worthwhile.

I’ll be using a usb IR receiver to program remote to for using as a media centre and use Windows 7. I’ve never done anything like this before so it will be interesting I’m sure. As a side note, how does the Xbox 360 interact with media centre and are there any benefits/pros of having my Xbox and HTPC work with each other?

I’ve only ordered a few parts so far as don’t have the time to build it at the moment. Any glaring errors and thoughts would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Makhaira · 1 Nov 2011 at 22:22

The SG01 is a cracking case, I had one for quite a while. My one comment would be your cooler selection - you're going to be fighting the PSU fan for airflow which won't help either component. I'd suggest looking at a large passive cooler and utilise the PSU fan for airflow. The NT06-E was designed for those cases, but I don't know if it will handle a 2500k.

Cleanthes · 1 Nov 2011 at 23:37

lsg1r · 2 Nov 2011 at 00:09

Makhaira said:
The SG01 is a cracking case, I had one for quite a while. My one comment would be your cooler selection - you're going to be fighting the PSU fan for airflow which won't help either component. I'd suggest looking at a large passive cooler and utilise the PSU fan for airflow. The NT06-E was designed for those cases, but I don't know if it will handle a 2500k.

I run an opteron 175 (105w AMD tdp iirc) with the older NT06 and an akasa psu (120mm fan) in a sg01 which I use for cad rendering. That doesn't overheat so I'm pretty sure a stock 2500k should be ok.

hawker1986 · 2 Nov 2011 at 08:06

TBH on the scythe you can just flip the fan over so its sucking into the PSU and that ought to alleviate the problem to a large degree. Also I wouldnt bother with the PCI soundcard if your running to your AVR then just use the onboard sound from the graphics card, youll have sound and picture down the HDMI cable then, much more straightforward.

Hawker

skullkid · 2 Nov 2011 at 10:04

Thanks a lot gents.

What IR receiver should I use? It will be controlled with a Harmony One so I don’t need a remote. Will any old USB IR receiver work well?

The tip on the HSF is well received. I did debate going for something like the NT06 but it has very poor reviews and if I do end up clocking the 2500k it’s not going to let me go too far. Plus I heard the Big Shuriken is pretty quiet and similarly priced.

I’m a little disappointed that my spec is working out quite pricey even with a budget gfx card but I’m just useless at down grading components once I make my mind up.

I will use a Toslink from my onboard soundcard then – my AVR although will accept HDMI w/ audio, it doesn’t decode the audio – it simply acts as a throughput. So I will have to run audio separately. It’s not a problem though.

With the latest Windows Media Center, is it quite straight forwards/quick to run Blurays from a setup like this?

Reality Bites · 3 Nov 2011 at 12:33

would you mind linking to the reviews on the NT06-E. I have one of the older ones in my sugo which was cooling my q6600 ok. Was going to get another for my i5-2400 (obviously leaving at stock) but the scythe was my other options. I wanted to aim for as silent a pc as posible.

EDIT: also, why go for a p67 board over a z68?

skullkid · 3 Nov 2011 at 14:16

Because from what I've read there's a not a huge difference and the equivalent z68 for example would be more of a budget board. The Asus Pro is reasonably priced and should clock better if I want to.

If anything I think that z68 uses SSD caching which can slow down boot times?

The Asus board I'll be using has some great reviews.

If you're leaving it stock, go for the NT06 but I believe the NT06 performs worse than stock HSF coolers. But obviously you've got the benefit of it being totally silent.

Reality Bites · 16 Nov 2011 at 09:12

how are you getting on with the Shuriken? I wanted to keep it as quiet as possible hence going for the NT06 but my supplier has let me down and most other places are order on request. I need a cooler ASAP really.

skullkid · 16 Nov 2011 at 14:30

Reality Bites said:
how are you getting on with the Shuriken? I wanted to keep it as quiet as possible hence going for the NT06 but my supplier has let me down and most other places are order on request. I need a cooler ASAP really.

Hi mate, I've not actually built it yet. I've got some parts at home, just been so busy recently. I'd imagine it's a pretty damn quiet cooler though.

I'm thinking of altering my spec anyway though as I am not sure I'll need an i5 2500k. I will not do any real gaming on this rig and I think it will be a waste.

skullkid · 21 Nov 2011 at 10:25

Well I spent most of my weekend building and playing around with my new setup.

I went for the Shuriken Rev. B and it was okay. I did what people said here and flipped the fan over so it was blowing air towards my PSU. The only thing that concerns me slightly is blowing warm air into the PSU could be a problem but so far, so good. At first I was worried I hadn’t installed the cooler properly. It’s the first time I’ve used push pins and 1 of the corners in particular was being a complete b!tch. No matter what sequence I pressed them down in, it kept popping up. A bit of brute force and some hail mary’s and it seemed to go in. I was still a bit concerned if a) I put on enough or too much thermal paste and b) that I kept moving the heatsink around a lot. However, after having a scare from Speedfan (said CPU was 88deg C on idle!!!) I downloaded CoreTest which gets the temps of each core and they are around 30-36deg C on idle with light load. I still need to run a stress test mind you but so far so good.

Also, is it normal for the BIOS temps to keep rising? I read somewhere that during initial boot (BIOS) the CPU is under load, because it starts at 30 and keeps rising until late 40’s. However, as I say, had PC on for a few hours yesterday mainly idling with CoreTest and it was stable.

I have a couple of teething problems still that I’m not sure if anyone here could help with….

Firstly is my monitor; I am using the DVI and HDMI output on my Radeon HD card. The HDMI goes to my plasma and the DVI goes to my monitor. However, sometimes my monitor will just go to sleep. I tried putting my PC to sleep yesterday (as it will always be ‘going to sleep’ as will be using as a media centre) and on wake-up, every time, my monitor would not wake up, but my plasma would do. Has anyone come across this at all? First things first I’m going to replace the DVI cable. I have had issues on my old PC though using the same DVI cable and monitor with sometimes the monitor not coming on when I initially boot up my PC. If the DVI cable doesn’t do anything it looks like I’ll have to invest in a new monitor.

The only other teething issues is just setting up my Harmony One to do all the things I need it to. I need to program the ‘Off’ button to also exit out from WMC and put my computer into sleep mode.

monsterhax · 1 Dec 2011 at 23:45

Hi,

I've been doing an almost identical build tonight with the following:

Intel Core i5-2500K
OcUK ATI Radeon HD 6850
Asus P8P67-M
Silverstone Sugo SG01B-F Evolution
Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze'
Scythe Shuriken Rev.B
8gb Kingston Grey
500Gb Sata II

I've yet to finish the build but also had the same concern over the Shuriken, it clipped in ok but I wasn't sure about which orientation it should go in at as it fits both ways, I ended facing the pipes left to right of the case as I was concerned any heat from them might also warm the ram slightly as it's all pretty close down there. Also the space between the CPU and PSU fan is close and (not being sure which way they spin) am concerned they might battle it out with one another for air flow.

Hopefully I'll finish it tomorrow day sometime and can start seeing what sort of temps I'll get, if i need to flip the CPU fan over it shouldn't be that tough a job just by popping the PSU out quickly.

monsterhax · 2 Dec 2011 at 11:51

Finished setting up an now chucking on the drivers.

I flipped the CPU fan over so now flow from PSU to fan are all going the same route, will have to see what this does to temps.

Not quiet though

the drive bay fan is a noisy fella, if i stop the fan nice and quiet then.

What does your ram speeds report as? I've put mine in slots 1 and 3 ( the black ones), it registers the full 8gb but says it's 1333, when it should be 1600?

Am I missing something?

monsterhax · 2 Dec 2011 at 15:43

I sorted the noise issue, I used the fan power splitter in the ASUS mobo box. I now have both chasis fans running off the CHA_FAN1 connector. Previously I had the drive bay one running on PWR_FAN and it was just running high constantly.

skullkid · 7 Dec 2011 at 10:51

monsterhax said:
I sorted the noise issue, I used the fan power splitter in the ASUS mobo box. I now have both chasis fans running off the CHA_FAN1 connector. Previously I had the drive bay one running on PWR_FAN and it was just running high constantly.

Haha - I didn't even know there was a splitter with the motherboard - I just disconnected the drive fan as I feel it doesn't really do much anyway.

Mine also reports as 1333mhz - have you sorted this out at all?

Cheers.

Lunatic Dreyfus · 7 Dec 2011 at 11:36

Those SG01's are really good, solid cases, and surprisingly roomy. I wish I'd bought mine in black rather than silver though. This might have stopped me blowing huge amounts of cash downsizing to m-ITX.

I replaced that annoying side fan with a Nexus, and managed to squeeze a rubber frame on it too. Wasn't easy though... In all honesty I don't think that fan is particularly useful any way. As for flipping the CPU fan, I've been doing this for quite a while now, so far so good...

monsterhax · 7 Dec 2011 at 12:31

skullkid said:
Haha - I didn't even know there was a splitter with the motherboard - I just disconnected the drive fan as I feel it doesn't really do much anyway.

Mine also reports as 1333mhz - have you sorted this out at all?

Cheers.

Hi,

No not fxed this issue yetl, I had read that if you change it too 1600 in the BIOS it can cause instability. With BIOS set to Auto it defaults to 1333 when you change to 1600 it ups the voltage and then this instability can occur, I've not managed to test this yet myself ( I will when I'm next to the PC again to see) but it sounds like a known problem. Try googling the RAM model and 1333 (mine was khx1600c9d3x2k2 8gx ), I've not had much time to dabble yet.

skullkid · 7 Dec 2011 at 14:50

Okay mate, thanks a lot – I’ll check tonight. I have a problem at the moment with my HDTV + my monitor both hooked up (DVI + HDMI) where my BIOS is unreadable (can only see top left) so I have to disconnect the HDMI if I am to change BIOS – more annoying than anything. I’ll check to see if I can run 1600mhz without any problems.

Like you I had my HDD cage fan plugged into the PWR_FAN and then I realised what was causing the horrific fan noise.

As I’m only running an SSD in there it’s okay. I’m going to get a 3TB HDD but I will go for an eco one with low heat – shouldn’t need a fan with that as the new ones do run cool from what I’ve read. Less fan noise the better.

I have flipped my fan over as suggested on here (as you know the clearance between the HSF and the PSU can isn’t much at all) so air is blowing away from the CPU. My temps are around 30-38deg on idle/light use. What are yours?

I really wasn’t a fan of the Shuriken clips – they didn’t fill me with confidence.

monsterhax · 7 Dec 2011 at 15:12

Hi,

The noise difference is majorily significant isn't it when taking it off the PWR_FAN jack.

Myu operating temps in idle are similar 30-38, I've not put much stress on it yet but am happy with these so far

I did find I was getting a knocking noise after flipping the fan but I wedged a small bit of plastic between the heat sink and fan and it sorted out.

skullkid · 7 Dec 2011 at 15:30

monsterhax said:
Hi,

The noise difference is majorily significant isn't it when taking it off the PWR_FAN jack.

Myu operating temps in idle are similar 30-38, I've not put much stress on it yet but am happy with these so far I did find I was getting a knocking noise after flipping the fan but I wedged a small bit of plastic between the heat sink and fan and it sorted out.

I’ll check I haven’t thrown the splitter away.

but still, after I’ve installed my storage drive I’ll use Crystal Disk Info to make sure it’s not overheating. I too am happy with the temps when you consider how tight it is in that part of the case + my case is in a cupboard so the airflow isn’t great.

My SSD is running at a cool 30 deg.

I did run 100% stress test on the CPU for about 30-45 minutes and the temps stabilised at about 68ish.

I’ll try and get some pictures up of my internals.