PSU Advice

[wozzaa]

good work. did you use the thermal grease with the zalman or artic silver 5? good temps?

also, did you attach the optional asus northbridge cooling fan included on the mobo??

I used AS5. Sitting in the BIOS, the CPU temp was idling at 55c, which I thought was a bit high really, but it'll likely cool down once it's all cooked in. Something I'll be monitoring for sure.

No I didn't use the additional cooler. It may be an option when I start OCing, but frankly the Zalman is massive - 110mm fan blowing straight over heatpipe fins anyway, so not necessary IMO

Vista 64bit is installing as I type

You may not have the heatsink seated properly they are really sensitive to it on the intel cpu's. Also possibility of un even surface on heatsink / CPU causing higher temps take the heatsink off again and have a look if the AS5 is grouped in 1 area chances are it was badly seated might have to do it a few times until you get it right. Temps should be way under that though.

If the board is reported 55c it is likely up around 60 - 65c can find this out using coretemp. But with vista 64bit you will have to turn off the driver validation to use coretemp which you do by pressing F8 on bootup to bring up the other menu. coretemp will give you the true heat output as it reads the internal sensors in the CPU for each core.

 

[David]

what sort of temps do you think he should be getting then? did seema little high

 

[Munson]

Cheers for the interest guys. I only ever use a smear of compound to fill any air gaps, but it's possible I fucked it up I guess. Installing a £700 CPU is quite stressful

It's all running now and just about to run 06 after Windows has updated. Technically, it's been my best build yet - straight to a healthy POST, SLI all configured properly now too...

I'll monitor CPU temps over the next day or so, and re-seat if needed

 

[David]

PICS then!

 

[Munson]

f**k the pics! All you need to know is that Crysis was running smoother than my arse on all high settings @1680x1050. I didn't try pumping it up any higher because I was downloading '06 while playing

'06 scores should follow later. Maybe some pics

 

[seb]

pics are necessary imo

 

[Munson]

Pics of what? A black box?

Maybe later, I'm playing Crysis...

 

[seb]

the build man or maybe you in your ck's playing crysis?

 

[Munson]

Cks are way too hot for this kinda deal buddy. I'm commando :approve:

 

[Munson]

The bummer at the moment is that '06 has some issues with Vista 64. Namely, it doesn't work

I'll sort that out later, or tomorrow.

 

[David]

your temps improved? i got my zalman to fit, but had to modify it or it was touching the heaatsink. not anymore anyway!

 

[Mike_182]

^You won't find many (if any) PSU that guarantee your hardware won't get shorted. You can however buy anti-surge protection that wires between your component and the PSU cables themselves.

Eitherway I wouldn't trust a PSU not to take other components with it.

As above, if the PSU goes bang it'll take anything on the end of it's wires.

 

[Munson]

Well, stock system with zero OC. 15675 in '06. I'm happy with that for now eh?

David, after a monster session on Crysis, the BIOS reported 62c, so maybe it's burning in already. Perhaps these extreme chips just run hottish at idle anyway? This machine takes the piss TBH. I love it :approve:

 

[wozzaa]

ASUS boards are known for giving very odd temp results which are usually very different to the true reading.

Use coretemp as my ASUS board reports 8C difference. Reporting a cooler CPU than it actually is. If yours is anything like that 70c with that cooler especially is very very high. My Q6600 with more volts and running quicker runs cooler than that. And more volts = more heat.

As I said though they can be a bit fiddly with getting the heatsink seated correctly. There are actually guides going on about that on the net I came across when mine was running at similar temps to yours which I thought was very odd. Comapred to most other people getting 40c and under. Reseated the heatsink a couple times and now its sitting under 40c at idle. Compared to the 60c it was at previously.

 

[Munson]

Cheers Wozza I'll defintely take that on board mate. Once the honeymoon of extreme performance is over, I will start looking at temps more closely. I know that sounds daft (not doing it now) but it's 100% stable and is playing everything I chuck at it without a hitch, but of course, cooler is better eh

I'll be updating the BIOS over the weekend and then I'll begin scrutinising every last detail. For now, it just f**king rocks so hard I can barely believe it. Crysis on high runs liquid gold, in fact I've turned the water up to very high with no visible drop in framerate at all. TBH this build is better than I ever hoped

 

[David]

you should update the bios soon. significant imrpovements for quad core chips, read up on it mate

 

[Munson]

you should update the bios soon. significant imrpovements for quad core chips, read up on it mate

Oh don't worry dude I will. I always do anyway (I'm not new to builds). For today though it's not needed

 

[David]

i know it's not your first build mate, wasn't being patronising, i've built about 14 machines myself and i still don't know everything.

I'll have some pics up of my new build at some point tomorrow provided everything goes smoothly.

Actually thinkng of getting another raptor drive and running raid 0 stripe to increase performance

 

[Munson]

I didn't think you were being patronising at all dude, all input is welcome and appreciated.

I may consider RAID 0 at some point, although TBH it isn't going to improve frame rates, and I can wait an extra 10 seconds for a level to load

 

[David]

10 seconds!!! CPU eternity!! haha

seriously though when you start clocking it you'l have to give me some tips on the bios apps as i'm going to be going to quite a high clock once it's all settled in.

 

[Munson]

With small OC to 3.33Ghz, the system just scored 17706. A big gain for just a multiplier increase? I guess that means the 8800s are reliant on the CPU to provide data? CPU limited as they say?

 

[Darren S]

I'll have to see what scores I got on 3DMark06. Haven't run that in a while. I don't think I broke 5 figures, though!

D.