New Build

I've built enough computers for other people and watched mine get way out of date, so I decided to finally dig deep in my pockets and build a new system. This is the first non-Intel processor computer I've ever built for myself.

Case: Raidmax Ninja (reused old case because I like it so much)
Power Supply: Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 650w
Motherboard: Gigabyte 880GA-UD3H
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4Ghz
Cooler: Stock AMD cooler (noisy, planning on picking up something better)
Video: PowerColor ATI Radeon HD 5770 (two cards, using CrossfireX)
Sound: Creative X-Fi Extreme
RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3
HDD: 500GB SATA x2 (one new and my older one, total 1TB)
Optical: LiteOn 24x DVD-Writer
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
Monitor: 42" Samsung

My old system has been reassembled in a new case for my girlfriend, minus the sound card which I put into this system (she's happy with the on-board sound).

[Moderator]

Congrats ! !
How's she runnin ? ?

So far so good. Basically being two builds that I did last night (the new build and transferring the old one to the new case) and everything went perfectly. Not a single issue.

Sadly, my girlfriend's Toshiba Libretto U100, the laptop which brought me to Computer Hope in the first place, has finally given up the ghost. That's the main reason I did this build, so she could have my old one.

Anyway, off to see how some of my favorite games are going to run on this thing.

Congrats ! !
How's she runnin ? ?

the proper response to that is of course, "She runs pretty fast, but this is about the computer."

[Moderator]

      

Well, it's running too warm. I think the second video card and stock CPU cooler are just not allowing it to cool enough. It idles at 45C and hits 60C+ during games, and this is with the air conditioner on and set to 26C If the air conditioner is off, sometimes it overheats and freezes. Not to mention the stock AMD cooler is noisy. Got my eye on a couple of nice CPU coolers and some more powerful case fans. Going to look at them on Friday.


......no Friday jokes.... I'll snap.... I swear....

[Moderator]

Have you utilised all case fan ports on the Ninja and are they running in the proper direction ? ?
On my Raidmax Smilodon build i was initially dissapointed in my temps...then i reversed the HDD cooling fan at the front of the case and saw immediate good results...

Have you utilised all case fan ports on the Ninja and are they running in the proper direction ? ?

All fan ports have a fan. The front HDD fan blows over the 2 hard drives, the side fan blows directly onto the CPU fan (how the case was designed), the rear fan blows out, and I believe the PSU fan blows out as well. The stock CPU fan is like most stock fans, it blows straight down onto the heat sink.

[Moderator]

OK...thats the same as my adjusted setup...how far is the GPU from the CPU and are those temps overly high ? ?
Mine has a crossbar with an adjustable fan to blow off the GPU...helps quite a bit...

They're only as far as they can be. There's only two PCIx16 slots on this board, and they're both taken (dual Radeon 5770 cards, double width so they take up two of the rear bays each). The right most smaller PCIx slot (see attached picture) is taken by the sound card and all other slots are empty. The "Turbo3D" you see in the picture is actually the top of a heat sink, I assume for the chipset (difficult to see because it's the same color as the board).

The stock CPU is just crap though. It's noisy as heck, especially when it cranks up when I'm playing games, and it just can't do the job unless the air conditioner is on. Even then, it's still not as low as I'd like it. I didn't expect it to be super cool, but it shouldn't be idling at 45-50C (113-122F).

Also, it overheated while I was out of the house again today. Rebooted and when I got back into Windows the CPU was at 57C (134F) and the video cards at 55C (131F) (without the air conditioner on). Weather outside was 34C (93F) today, so no help there. From what I read, AMD says 62C (143F) max on the Phenom II X4.

[recovering disk space - old attachment deleted by admin]

Ok, so I had a cooler dropped off at the shop today. I got a CoolerMaster V6 GT. It's a bit taller than my old Asus Silent Square Pro that was in this case (165mm vs. 158mm), and the Asus cooler was right up against the case's side 80mm (25mm thick) fan. To buy me a bit of extra space, I'm gonna take one of the slim fans I've got here (15mm thick), which should give me the extra space I need for this cooler.

I'm also going to take two 120mm case fans to replaces the aging ones that are already in there. I figure I might as well replace those too since I have to disassemble the entire thing to put the bracket on for the CPU cooler.

[Moderator]

I'd say that beast should do it.....

You'd think so...

The only thing I've seemed to achieve is silence. The noisy AMD stock fan is out and the V6 is in, as well as the new fans. Quiet as a whisper. I actually had to stop and check that all the fans were spinning.

Few problems though. The V6 is in fact larger than what they claim on the box by a tad over 1cm. This means the 1cm I gained by buying a slimmer fan was lost and then some. Basically, I can't put the side fan on, but I can get the cover on without a fan.

SpeedFan is putting the temp at 32-37C (air conditioner on). Going to put some stress on it for a bit and see what happens.

-=EDIT=-
20 minutes of gaming and it seems to be peaking at 48-52C, so should be alright now.

Can't edit my last post to add this, and I can't believe I didn't think of this before...

I managed to get the side fan on. I screwed it to the outside instead of the inside. There was a little fan guard that was on the outside of the case, which I've now screwed to the outside of the fan on the outside of the case. I know it's not going to make a huge difference, but just a tiny bit of extra flow.

[Moderator]

You know the line....Pics...or it didn't happen...

Here's the cooler with the side cover off. You can see it comes right up to the side. It blows directly out through the newly replaced rear fan.



With the cover on, you can see the cooler comes right up to the window with about 3/16" to spare. The fan, despite being a slim model (1/2"), is too big to go on the inside, so I removed the old fan guard, screwed it to the outside of the fan, then screwed the fan to the outside of the case. The cooler blocks a little over half of that hole though.



So much better now. That cooler is soooooo quiet.

[Moderator]

Nicely done...hope she stays chilly for you.
BTW how much was the Coolermaster ? ?

Normally, I think they run about $50 retail, I got this one from an acquaintance's shop for about $35, which I think is what he pays for them. He builds more high-end gaming systems than I do, so I send a lot of people his way who are looking for that and he sends me people who are looking to build low-end budget computers and people who need repairs and what-not, so we help each other out when we can.

The case fans I already had in stock (they're all Cooler Master, only fans I sell now), but I don't normally keep large CPU coolers around since I don't get a lot of requests for them. I keep a couple stock coolers for Intel and AMD around for replacements in systems that have them fail, but those I usually get for free or next to nothing.

-=EDIT=-
Just checked online. Looks like they're $60-70 most places. Guess I saved more than I thought. 

Ok, there's something else wrong now. I don't know if it's a heat related problem or what. Because it was running so hot before, I assumed it was, but now after making these changes, I installed CoreTemp and let it log the temperature changes over the last 12 hours. It takes a reading every 10 seconds, noting the time, current temp, record low, record high, CPU load, and CPU speed. It saves it in a CSV file (readable by Excel, OpenOffice, and other programs). These readings are without air conditioning, this is the computer idling at 35-38C (good enough) with room temp at about 30-35C.

At about 1am, the processor kicked in for 2 minutes and the temperature went up to 46.

At about 4am, the processor kicked in again for about 2 minutes and the temperature went up to 47 (the max for the night).

Code: [Select]

Time    Temp   Min Max Load Speed
04:15:27,38°,,,32°,46°,2%,803.55 MHz,
04:15:37,38°,,,32°,46°,0%,803.55 MHz,
04:15:47,43°,,,32°,46°,55%,3415.10 MHz,
04:15:57,43°,,,32°,46°,63%,803.55 MHz,
04:16:07,44°,,,32°,46°,71%,3415.10 MHz,
04:16:17,45°,,,32°,46°,40%,3415.10 MHz,
04:16:27,44°,,,32°,46°,46%,3415.10 MHz,
04:16:37,44°,,,32°,46°,60%,3415.10 MHz,
04:16:47,43°,,,32°,46°,49%,803.55 MHz,
04:16:57,43°,,,32°,46°,48%,3415.10 MHz,
04:17:07,44°,,,32°,46°,60%,3415.10 MHz,
04:17:17,43°,,,32°,46°,42%,3415.10 MHz,
04:17:27,46°,,,32°,46°,49%,3415.10 MHz,
04:17:37,46°,,,32°,47°,55%,3415.10 MHz,
04:17:47,46°,,,32°,47°,78%,3415.10 MHz,
04:17:57,40°,,,32°,47°,8%,803.55 MHz,
04:18:07,40°,,,32°,47°,2%,803.55 MHz,
I assume it was either an AV update or some other minor thing.

Here's the last minute or so before it stopped recording the log:

Code: [Select]

Time    Temp   Min Max Load Speed
09:06:11,39°,,,32°,47°,6%,803.55 MHz,
09:06:21,39°,,,32°,47°,6%,803.55 MHz,
09:06:31,38°,,,32°,47°,8%,803.55 MHz,
09:06:41,40°,,,32°,47°,12%,803.55 MHz,
09:06:51,39°,,,32°,47°,8%,803.55 MHz,
09:07:01,39°,,,32°,47°,14%,803.55 MHz,
09:07:11,39°,,,32°,47°,9%,803.55 MHz,
09:07:22,39°,,,32°,47°,8%,803.55 MHz,
09:07:32,39°,,,32°,47°,6%,803.55 MHz,
09:07:42,39°,,,32°,47°,8%,2209.77 MHz,
09:07:52,39°,,,32°,47°,12%,803.55 MHz,
09:08:02,39°,,,32°,47°,11%,803.55 MHz,

09:08:02 being the last entry, but nothing unusual temperature wise, so I think this rules out my initial theory that the computer was overheating while I was away. Something within 10 seconds of 09:08:02 caused the computer to freeze, and it has done this about 5-6 times now if I leave the system on all day or night, but I've never had it happen while using it and therefore never see it actually occur.

Here's something particularly odd I noticed: This is a 16:9 screen. When receiving a 4:3 signal, it (the TV) colors the outside edges a dark gray (not black, this is normal and how this TV functions). When it freezes like this, it seems to have changed to a 4:3 signal as these outer gray parts are showing and the TV indicates in its status that it's 4:3. The 4:3 section that is showing is black, with a slightly distorted mouse cursor stretched wide slightly. The computer is running, but the mouse and keyboard are unresponsive.

Is it possible the two video cards (or even one of them) are overheating? This program doesn't log video card temps, do you know of any that do?

20 minutes of gaming and it seems to be peaking at 48-52C, so should be alright now.

A few thoughts -

I know my hardware is not directly comparable - In my little Shuttle SN78SH7 I have a Phenom 945 running at 3.0 GHz, (it's the 95 Watt part, there is also a 125 Watt part which runs a bit hotter) cooled by the stock Shuttle heatpipe cooler (with a radiator which a vertical fan cools) and with Cool 'n' Quiet enabled it idles at around 25 C and ramps up to around 38 - 40 on load. The 965 has (or had) C2 stepping (140 Watt) and C3 stepping (125 Watt) variants - if it's a newly bought part I would guess it's a C3 (the "Revision" section of the Core Temp app should indicate this)

I have seen reports of the 955 BE 9 (140 Watt) running at around 25-30 idle up to around 48 load and this being considered OK so I think your temps are reasonable especially if your ambient temp is on the warm side.



Speedfan should be able to measure the GPU temp(s). It has a Notification Area temp readout like Core Temp's but not such an attractive one (weird font) and also can do logging and show a temp chart in real time.

Alright, I'm pretty sure it isn't heat at all now. The air conditioner is on, but the computer just did it again when I was out of the room.

Windows 7 was still using the default "Balanced" power setting. If it's putting the something to sleep and failing, I'll find out soon enough. I've just shut off any feature that allows it to do that.

CoreTemp does indicate it is a RB-C3.

Alright, I'm pretty sure it isn't heat at all now. The air conditioner is on, but the computer just did it again when I was out of the room.

Windows 7 was still using the default "Balanced" power setting. If it's putting the something to sleep and failing, I'll find out soon enough. I've just shut off any feature that allows it to do that.

CoreTemp does indicate it is a RB-C3.

Have you looked at the event logs?

I edited the "power saving" plan because it can set the CPU to a lower power level than the "balanced" one.

Require a password: never
Hard disk: Turn off hard disk after "9999 minutes"
Desktop background settings: "enable"
Wireless Adapter settings: Power Saving Mode: "Maximum Performance" (I don't have a wireless adapter)

Sleep:
   Sleep after "Never"
   Hibernate after "never"
   Allow wake timers "Disable" (I'm not sure if this makes a difference if sleep/hibernate are set to "Never")

USB settings: USB selective suspend setting: "Disabled"

Power buttons and lid:
   Power button action "Do nothing"
   Sleep button action "Do nothing"

PCI Express: Link State Power Management "Maximum power savings"
I have never really thought about this; when you hover over it an infotip says "Attempt to use the L1 state when the link is idle"
The other states I can see are:
Moderate power savings - "Attempt to use the L0S state when the link is idle"
Off - "Turn off ASPM for all links"

Processor power Management
   Minimum processor state "0%"
   System cooling policy "Passive" (slow the processor before increasing fan speed) The alternative is "Active" - increase the fan speed before slowing processor)
   Maximum processor state (100%)
   
Display: Turn off display after: "Never"

Multimedia settings
   When sharing media: "Prevent idling to Sleep"
   When playing video: "Optimize video quality"   

Yeah, went through the logs. The next entry of note after the shutdowns is something to the effect of "The previous system shutdown at 3:20:22 PM on ‎4/‎30/‎2011 was unexpected." except the date and time of course changes based on when the system stopped responding. It is accompanied by another entry of "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

The final message of note after those is this:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.  The bugcheck was: 0x0000008e (0xc0000005, 0x922622a7, 0xa2cea794, 0x00000000). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 043011-17160-01.

I'm reading online through stuff about this last message right now.

0x0000008e (0xc0000005... seems to be tied to a lot of things. Bad memory, drivers, and even sleep mode failures.

Since disabling sleep and hibernation 12 hours ago, I left the system running and it's still going now. I suspected it was this because this never occurs while it's in use, only when I'm not using it.

I'm going out for the day, so I'll leave it and see if it's still running later.

[Moderator]

I'd run MemTest...

If it happens again, I will. The memory is brand new, so there shouldn't be anything wrong with it, but things happen.

Since I changed the power settings (no sleep, no hibernate, never turn stuff off automatically) it hasn't happened. 16 hours now and no freeze.

but the computer just did it again when I was out of the room.

So, don't leave the room!   

[Moderator]

    

I wonder if the right sleep setting is enabled in the BIOS? I believe some W7 systems have trouble coming out of S1 sleep in which case S3 should be selected in the BIOS.

[Moderator]

In regards to the memory being new also on 1 build last month i had a brand new stick of OCZ RAM that was bad....it happens.

It's been a few days and the freeze hasn't happened again since I turned off sleep, so I'm guessing that was the cause.

[Moderator]

Good news !