New Build, need advice please.

Veradun · 3 Mar 2012 at 19:30

My friend has a problem with his new cd drive he just bought. He bought it cheap from eBay and he got an OEM. He's told me that he's plugged it all in just fine, and Windows detects it but he gets the error 39 if I remember correctly. This is a driver issue is it not? As being OEM, it didn't come with any cd's so I told him to check the Sony website, but his model doesn't have any drivers available for it on the site.

EDIT: It's working now

honosuseri · 4 Mar 2012 at 04:16

It's coming along nicely then steve

So you must be ready to download msi afterburner and start work OC'ing the GPU.......you'll wish you started there it's much easier lol

There is a benchmark tool called 3dmark which you may or may not have heard of. You might well be interested to see what score you get from your PC completely stock vs what you get for all this tinkering we talk you into.

Veradun · 4 Mar 2012 at 12:21

honosuseri said:
It's coming along nicely then steve

So you must be ready to download msi afterburner and start work OC'ing the GPU.......you'll wish you started there it's much easier lol

There is a benchmark tool called 3dmark which you may or may not have heard of. You might well be interested to see what score you get from your PC completely stock vs what you get for all this tinkering we talk you into.

Yep, that's next on my list. Already have MSI downloaded, but I'll have to get that 3dmark. I was wondering why this card's clock only OC's to 840MHz and 1325MHz on the memory. My old card could get to 960MHz clock and around 1375MHz memory stable. I obviously know it's a better card though.

Veradun · 5 Mar 2012 at 01:08

Thinking about fans and layout, I came up with a quick diagram:

That article I read mentioned something about front-to-back cooling to be terrible since there's so much distance between the two fans. I would prefer to keep my front fan, as I like how the LED lights up the room.

That article said that getting hot air out is more important than getting cold air in. I can fit two fans at the top of the case (120/140mm). I'd be using these two for exhaust and would probably aim for the 140mm fans, bigger fans should be more powerful I imagine.

Now, on the right door I have space for another 2 120/140mm fans. I'm thinking intake; cold air right onto the board. Not sure if I'd need two of them, but it would have course decrease temps. Same as before, I'd rather get the larger 140mm fans.

I only have 2 system fan slots on my mobo, one a 3 pin (rear) and one a four pin (front). I also have a "PWR_FAN" 3 pin slot according to my manual. Adding an extra four fans would mean I need a fan splitter cable, I saw one the other day in a shop and it was very cheap so that's all good.

honosuseri · 5 Mar 2012 at 03:10

Your front intake is passing cool air over the HDDs Steve, so yes you do want to keep that fan there....unless you want to swap it out to change the colour scheme

The general rule of thumb (incase i havent mentioned it before), is the bigger the fan the more air it moves and the quieter it is. Of course noise depends on the bearings used/quality of the fan.

You could consider fitting a fan controller to the front of the case to control the fans, it's powered by a molex connector and then the fans are plugged directly into it. They do 6 channel ones if you want to run that many fans.

While we are on the topic of cooling.....how did you mount the PSU? Is the fan facing towards the GPU or is it facing the bottom of the case?

Veradun · 5 Mar 2012 at 12:47

honosuseri said:
You could consider fitting a fan controller to the front of the case to control the fans, it's powered by a molex connector and then the fans are plugged directly into it. They do 6 channel ones if you want to run that many fans.

While we are on the topic of cooling.....how did you mount the PSU? Is the fan facing towards the GPU or is it facing the bottom of the case?

Does a fan controller only manage speed or do they also manage direction? If it's only speed, I would't be too fussed about a controller.

The PSU fan is facing into the machine, just checked.

These fans look good:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-003-BQ

Those 4 would cost £77.87 with delivery, which is a lot for cooling fans. I wouldn't qualify for the free delivery until April either. I could get them cheaper with free delivery somewhere else so I might have to do that, it would save me £15.

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 13:39

Spending that much on fans is a bit OTT, could sell the case and put the money towards another with higher airflow out of the box.

Rusty0611 · 5 Mar 2012 at 13:45

If you have your case slightly elevated off the ground you can spin the PSU round so it's taking air from outside the case rather than inside. Could help.

Edit: Assuming you have an air vent there....

Veradun · 5 Mar 2012 at 14:15

stulid said:
Spending that much on fans is a bit OTT, could sell the case and put the money towards another with higher airflow out of the box.

I don't really want to pull it all out again now, and I have plenty of room. It's only problem is that it only has one exhaust and one intake which only cools the HDD bay as hono said.

I can get 4 of them for £60 which isn't too bad, but 4 is the worst case scenario. I'm sure one exhaust at the top and one intake on the side would drop temps by at least 5°C if that article is accurate. So 2 would only cost me £30, but more the better eh lol.

I might buy two to start with, and just place 1 on the side and one on the roof to see how much temps drop, if I'm not 100% satisfied, I'd buy 1 or 2 more.

Rusty0611 said:
If you have your case slightly elevated off the ground you can spin the PSU round so it's taking air from outside the case rather than inside. Could help.

Edit: Assuming you have an air vent there....

Yeah, my case has larger rubber feet which gives it around a 1" ground clearance I believe. It also sits on a wood floor so it's cooler than your average carpet. It does have a vent as well, even comes with a removable dust filter. I'll flip it around real quick and see if that has any effects on temps (it's only an intake though).

Veradun · 5 Mar 2012 at 15:06

It's been flipped, and I also removed the extra 4 HDD bays at the front to allow better air intake from the front fan. I can add them back later if needed.

Idle Max Temps @ 4.4GHz before:

43, 39, 41, 42

Idle Max Temps @ 4.4GHz after:

39, 39, 40, 40

Veradun · 5 Mar 2012 at 16:20

In fact, I think that has made it worse.

Checked again and temps were higher than before, tested one lap of Intel Burn Test and it even stopped it self for critical error with a linpack.

But the max temps were almost 10°C higher than before!

70°C, 76°C, 79°C, 75°C!!!!!!!

See how bad that is! That's just from turning the power supply over, don't know how that would increase CPU temps by so much but it's obviously having an effect. The PSU must have been sucking some of that hot air out, now it's just stuck. I'll change it back when I get back later.

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 16:30

Thats a big difference, for just having a PSU the other way around.

honosuseri · 5 Mar 2012 at 17:20

Steve Foster said:
It's been flipped, and I also removed the extra 4 HDD bays at the front to allow better air intake from the front fan. I can add them back later if needed.

Idle Max Temps @ 4.4GHz before:

43, 39, 41, 42

Idle Max Temps @ 4.4GHz after:

39, 39, 40, 40

Oh you're stable upto 4.4 now are you? That's good and the temps seem much better than what they were when you first finished the build (didnt you say it was in the low 60s?).

I have one of those silent wing fans built into my bequiet PSU. That's a lot of poppy for a fan though! You could easily get two decent 120mm fans for that, if you like the blue glow from the front fan, you could continue that theme on the top of the case. Remember you also have another intake at the bottom of the case as well.

The case isn't a sealed unit, if you have more air being pumped out, air will find a way into the case........cue the topic "positive vs negative air pressure"

http://www.silverstonetek.com/techtalk_cont.php?tid=wh_positive&area=usa

honosuseri · 5 Mar 2012 at 17:35

Steve Foster said:
In fact, I think that has made it worse.

Checked again and temps were higher than before, tested one lap of Intel Burn Test and it even stopped it self for critical error with a linpack.

But the max temps were almost 10°C higher than before!

70°C, 76°C, 79°C, 75°C!!!!!!!

See how bad that is! That's just from turning the power supply over, don't know how that would increase CPU temps by so much but it's obviously having an effect. The PSU must have been sucking some of that hot air out, now it's just stuck. I'll change it back when I get back later.

This is exactly why we told you to flip the PSU over, you don't want warm air being sucked into it. The hotter the PSU is you are shortening it's life, you now know you really do need more cooling. Back off your CPUs OC and leave the PSU as it is now.

Start seeing what OC you can manage on the GPU now, just to kill time till you get your free delivery. Then you can order more fans and adjust the layout till you find something that suits

p.s (Sorry, I had started my last post before i was stuck on the phone......seems things have changed somewhat.)

Veradun · 5 Mar 2012 at 18:25

honosuseri said:
Oh you're stable upto 4.4 now are you? That's good and the temps seem much better than what they were when you first finished the build (didnt you say it was in the low 60s?).

No lol, a typo as I was in a rush. I'm on a stable 4.3GHz right now, 4.4 isn't yet, I was waiting to go any higher until I had more cooling.

My idle temps at 4.3GHz were around 38-40 and around 60-70 under 100% load.

honosuseri said:
This is exactly why we told you to flip the PSU over, you don't want warm air being sucked into it. The hotter the PSU is you are shortening it's life, you now know you really do need more cooling. Back off your CPUs OC and leave the PSU as it is now.

Start seeing what OC you can manage on the GPU now, just to kill time till you get your free delivery. Then you can order more fans and adjust the layout till you find something that suits

Okay. As for the GPU, is there any reason it has lower clocks than my old 5770? Seems like it doesn't OC much, unless voltage control gives you more range on the clocks? Might get myself a few of those fans before my free delivery though, won't have the time requirement until mid April. I'll get some when I get paid.

Veradun · 11 Mar 2012 at 17:18

honosuseri said:
Start seeing what OC you can manage on the GPU now

I mentioned that I never had a switch on the GPU, unless it's hidden something awful, but it does say on the side of the box sticker:

"HD6950 2G GDDR5 PCI-E DL-DVI-I+SL-DVI-D/HDMI/DPW/DUAL FAN & BIOS"

Here's a picture of the box it came in if that helps:

I'm happy with it as is, but if it's easy to unlock those extra shaders then that's even better!

honosuseri · 11 Mar 2012 at 17:27

it would be near where you put the xfire bridge.......there is a chance it doesnt have it fella.

In all honest it doesn't really do jack for performance, considering OC'ing will provide similar results if not better

Veradun · 11 Mar 2012 at 18:50

Found it upon closer inspection. God it's tiny!

What do I do, just switch off, move the switch and then restart then it's a 6970 bios?

Veradun · 11 Mar 2012 at 19:25

So small it was a fiddle to switch it, but I now have 1536 unified shaders!

honosuseri · 11 Mar 2012 at 20:31

Steve Foster said:
Found it upon closer inspection. God it's tiny!

What do I do, just switch off, move the switch and then restart then it's a 6970 bios?

Closer inspection or me pointing it out?