PC Case died, what should I upgrade while changing case?

[Tidgney]

Hey guys/girls,

I'm wondering whether you can help? My PC Case died recently (I say died, all the top connections seem to have lost power, and the microphone jack is broken) so I'm currently looking for a PC Case, any recommendations welcome! However while I'm moving the PC from 1 case to the other I thought it might be worthwhile doing some upgrades if required. I say if required as I'm talking more on a price for performance gain here... Is there anything you would upgrade in this system?

System Currently;

Case (Which has died, and was a bit small for GPU, had to remove HD bays): NZXT Phantom 410 Midi Tower Case
MOBO: Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK
Power Supply: SuperFlower Leadex Gold 850W Fully Moduler Power Supply
CPU: i7 4790K CPU
GPU: R9 290 PCS+ OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro H100i
RAM: 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz
Hard drives:

• Samsung PM951 512GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive
• Samsung 250gb SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gbs Basic
• WD Red 3TB NAS Desktop HD

Additional Harddrives connected via USB as the M.2 sacrifices SATA connections on the MOBO?

• WD Red 3TB NAS Desktop HD
  
• WD 1TB HD (Think its 5600)

Pretty sure that's everything? Main uses of the computer are;

• Gaming
• Recording while gaming
• Video Editing
• Streaming in the future (Once I move house closer to the exchange, would cost 12k currently to get FTTP here haha, no thanks BT!)

I haven't overclocked the system either even though I have the ability to, mainly because I'm a little unsure on it to be honest! My main issues have been USB Ports, and harddrives not being able to be connected because of the M.2. (I wouldn't sacrifice the M.2. either as it's bloody brilliant!). I suppose the other issue is recording while gaming as that can be quite taxing? I have 2 monitors live at any one time with a 3rd which mirrors the main monitor (I'm assuming this takes it's toll on the system as well).

Is there anything glaring here that you would upgrade, while switching cases on the system which would see a decent price for performance increase? i.e. not like a 1080 ti which is crazy amount of money and probably worth the same as this entire PC now... but something you would put in and be like, yes that's a good performance increase for x amount.

Any help is much appreciated,

Cheers,

 

[StarShock]

Not really much to do. A 1070 or 1080 would give you a bit of a bump. A ryzen 7, new mobo and ram would improve streaming performance. But its a pretty big outlay and you wouldn't see much in the way of gaming performance

 

[Pocah]

Yep I agree there, the 1070 is about the only thing I would do there. I don't know if you have the original Corsair fans on the H100i but I would replace those with some ML140 Pro's if you have. Makes it run cooler and quieter. The fans corsair fit really aren't very good at all.

Cases, well, rather depends on the style you like. Phanteks p400 White for some real budget style. Fractal R5 if you want quality and sedate style. Corsair 460 if you want PC-bling. There are many other good cases around at the moment. All of those will take the H100i.

 

[FloppyPoppy]

Sounds more like the front panel headers on the motherboard are goosed. Have you tried to short them out to see if it can boot that way? as you may just be wasting money on a case you don't need instead of a motherboard that may be damaged.

 

[Tidgney]

Cheers for the advice all much appreciated! I'll look into the 1070 maybe I can sell the 290 for a good amount which would help! I am using the H100i original fans, so I'll look into the ML140 thanks for that !

Harry I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing in terms of electronics and such (With shorting?) but in addition the jack input is broken so I'm thinking it might be a good time to just get a new case.

 

[Tidgney]

Ok, it's definitely something more serious as the whole computer has decided to not power on now! A friend has said it could be the regulators on the motherboard which means I guess I'll need a new motherboard? Or will this have done damage to other parts of the system ?

Essentially nothing powers on, no lights on the motherboard at all although there's an occasional flash from a USB Pen drive which suggests there is the slightest of power occasionally?

Any recommendations on motherboards?

 

[EsaT]

My PC Case died recently (I say died, all the top connections seem to have lost power, and the microphone jack is broken)

With Lian Li case you could just get new I/O port panel.

Essentially nothing powers on, no lights on the motherboard at all although there's an occasional flash from a USB Pen drive which suggests there is the slightest of power occasionally?

That could be also PSU.
Even without system able to boot there should be 5V Standby present when PSU gets power.
If you have multimeter you could check if that works in PSU and even try "jumpstarting" PSU to see if it has any chances to power PC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX#/media/File:ATX_PS_signals.svg

 

[HoneyBadger]

Check the easy things first. Got a spare power cable? Tried a different socket?

 

[Tidgney]

Managed to get another computer and put it close and switch the motherboard power connector over and the computer fired the other one into life so that suggests PSU I'm assuming?

I'm pretty sure this had an extended warranty; SuperFlower Leadex Gold 850W Fully Moduler Power Supply

So I'll have to do some digging now, I'm still tempted by a new case though, but might save that for when something more serious happens or big upgrade as I'm after a laptop for my holiday next year!

 

[Tidgney]

So I sent my PSU back to Overclockers and they said it's working fine so I've no idea what to do now in terms of what the problem is or how to fix it? We (Me and my dad) literally got his computer which isn't a big beast of a machine, but had a 500w supply and put just the motherboard connector into my MOBO (So he didn't have to recable everything) and pressed the on switch on my case. This switched on his computer, and then it switched itself off (I assumed this was normal as we only had the MOBO power connector in mine and the rest was in his?). But that said to me PSU straight away as it triggered? However as it's been tested fine (And stress tested) what else could it be?

I'm assuming this is something quite serious either motherboard or CPU? Not sure how I could test these things very easily ? Should I just be buying new here? I don't really want to fork out hundreds of pounds for another new CPU as my i7 920 lasted me an eternity so would seem insane if it's the CPU?

Wondering whether this needs to move topics from here to just hardware as well so apologies if it's gone off topic from the original !