Author Topic: Cooking my PC: what NOT to do (Read 33,946 times)

f0dder · « **Reply #25 on:** February 17, 2008, 09:41 PM »

Oh, 30C ambient temperature - that certainly doesn't help

Most decent cases will have room for an intake fan or two in the front, usually 120mm these days, although 90mm or 80mm also exist. It's a good idea having an intake fan right in front of your harddrives. I usually wouldn't bother with a side-panel fan, but with 30C ambient temperature, perhaps it's a good idea to get one of those really big ones

A different CPU cooler with a humongous heatsink (and at least a 80mm fan) would probably also be a good idea. As far as I can tell you have an old (not socket 775) motherboard, so you can't do The Good Thing^TM and find a cheap core2 CPU that'll outperform the Pentium4 (running cooler as well)

nosh · « **Reply #26 on:** February 17, 2008, 10:11 PM »

Quote from: Lashiec on February 17, 2008, 09:18 PM

(well, 30 ºC is lower than 85 ºC anyway )

Very true :d but I've only ever had the overheating freezes when I have just the (room) ceiling fan on, the ambient temperature though it just varies by a few degrees seems to make a big difference. The card does have a heatsink and it also has these small springy clip things so I guess those would be for attaching a fan, that'll be my first priority. I would also like to go for another fan for the case but I'm a bit concerned about the power supply falling short - I know I upped the capacity after the previous one blew out (

) but I haven't the foggiest about how much power I can spare for additional components.

Quote

My case's front intake fan utilizes 3 of my 9 available drive bays

I have just one drive bay to spare, I'm thinking something at the side that directly cools the components would make a lot more sense. I don't mind shelling out for a decent cabinet if I don't find a good solution, one I'll hopefully be able to reuse for my next PC.

nosh · « **Reply #27 on:** February 17, 2008, 10:20 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on February 17, 2008, 09:41 PM

Oh, 30C ambient temperature - that certainly doesn't help

Most decent cases will have room for an intake fan or two in the front, usually 120mm these days, although 90mm or 80mm also exist.

I'll probably spare myself the grief then and just go for a new cabinet _and_ try to attach a fan to the GPU too coz I have a feeling general cabinet fans may fall a bit short there!

Quote

As far as I can tell you have an old (not socket 775) motherboard, so you can't do The Good Thing^TM and find a cheap core2 CPU that'll outperform the Pentium4 (running cooler as well)

True, just bought 2GB RAM and the guy who sold it tells me I won't be able to use it with a Core2 Duo- sucks!

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #28 on:** February 17, 2008, 10:25 PM »

A strange, very hard way to stress test your PC:

I have been doing this for a couple years now, works great, as long as the system doesn't lock up because of lag (it isn't uncommon)...

When I need to see what my PC can do, I run the most hardware intensive games I have. And lots of them. And I play them all via Alt-Tab (or, for Vista, an added stress is the Flip 3D, where you have the game actively playing as it scrolls through).

Right now I am running:

Firefox
Pidgin
Windows Live Messenger
Songbird
Halo
Halo 2
Test Drive Unlimited

All 3 games are on their highest settings (except resolution, I do this windowed) and I am getting about 2-3 FPS in Test Drive Unlimited (8-10 in Halo 2, and about 30 in Halo 1).

I am running all this, and if I don't see a performance drop, I will continue opening games.

Now, off to check my email in Windows Live Mail...

Lashiec · « **Reply #29 on:** February 18, 2008, 12:01 AM »

Quote from: nosh on February 17, 2008, 10:20 PM

I'll probably spare myself the grief then and just go for a new cabinet _and_ try to attach a fan to the GPU too coz I have a feeling general cabinet fans may fall a bit short there!

There's no need for a new case, as long as the current one allows more fans. A quick review of the spec sheet will tell you if there's that possibility.

As for the PSU running out of juice as a result of adding more fans, I would not count on it. Fans do not consume much power, but it depends on the max wattage of your PSU, and how many components you have.

f0dder · « **Reply #30 on:** February 18, 2008, 12:04 AM »

That's not a very good stress test, wreckedcarzz! You risk wasting a lot of CPU use by disk swapping (unless you have an insane amount of RAM), you risk games fighting for GPU resources and thus not maxxing out the GPU, and if you're disk swapping, CPU usage won't be maxxed either, since you'll be wasting time waiting for disk I/O.

It's better to stress the CPU by running something like prime95 (both small FFTs and in-place large FFTs, they stress in different ways), and afterwards try something really GPU intensive - I dunno which, but 3DMark has usually been pretty heavy on the GPUs I've had.

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #31 on:** February 18, 2008, 12:07 AM »

I run dedicated stress test programs now and again, but I feel it pushes the whole system harder the way I usually do it. It pushes the CPU, GPU, hard drive, RAM and PSU all hard, as well as Windows itself having to manage everything going on. I don't do it to measure a specific item, but moreover the system as a whole.

f0dder · « **Reply #32 on:** February 18, 2008, 12:16 AM »

Well, if it floats your boat

- I'd still say it's not the most effective way to really stress out your PC.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #33 on:** February 18, 2008, 12:44 AM »

There are lots of stress tests out there that do a good job of this.

SiSoft's Sandra is a benchmarking kit (there is a free version) which includes a soak test function that does things like max out memory IO, maxout the CPU, does GPU intensive tests and also floating point unit soak tests.

If you have an nVidia graphics card there is a soaktest built into the nVidia Control Panel.

You could also try http://www.majorgeeks.com/CliBench_mk_III_smp_d121.html which works from a floppy

ChalkTrauma · « **Reply #34 on:** February 19, 2008, 04:34 AM »

I'd recommend burning a Ultimate Boot disk to have around to make sure things are running like they should:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

I always carry a up to date version with me to troubleshoot with..

I don't know what is more painful, sabotaging your own system, or having a factory tech do it for you and chasing your tail for weeks trying to figure out why your system just keeps winking out of existence for no good reason, until they send you a new power supply as a last resort, and when you pull out the old one you find this beauty hiding behind it:

oops!

Notice the finely crimped lead to an LED light array on the top of the box some tech cinched between the power supply and a sharp edge.. When the box got hot enough, the lead shorted and the system shut down, or as I found out, if you close the front panel hard enough.. Makes you want to run right out and buy one of these:

http://www.jinx.com/men/shirts/geek/computers_are_fun.html?catid=1#bigdesign

Just to make yourself believe it

app103 · « **Reply #35 on:** February 19, 2008, 11:52 AM »

Quote from: nosh on February 17, 2008, 07:44 PM

Quote
The system with a Prescott CPU shuts down at a higher temperature than that with a Northwood. The latter's peak was, in our case, 98°C, while Prescott never shut down at temperatures below 101°C, sometimes even working on at 105°C.
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/p4-throttling/index.html

Yeah, those Prescotts get mighty hot. I have one, and before I started running the fans at 100% at all times with SpeedFan, I was over 60C most of the time, with the fans kicking into full speed automatically at 67C.

It's currently at 44C, but that's because it's winter here and I keep my heat turned off and warm my apartment with my CPU.

f0dder · « **Reply #36 on:** February 19, 2008, 12:45 PM »

Btw, the Pentium4's have thermal diodes, to make them shut down on overheating instead of frying. Funny thing is that they get so hot so fast that if you turn on a late-model "fast" P4 without a heatsink... you risk that they actually blow up. I saw a video of it, but iirc that CPU was overclocked as well

Lashiec · « **Reply #37 on:** February 19, 2008, 02:39 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on February 19, 2008, 12:45 PM

Btw, the Pentium4's have thermal diodes, to make them shut down on overheating instead of frying. Funny thing is that they get so hot so fast that if you turn on a late-model "fast" P4 without a heatsink... you risk that they actually blow up. I saw a video of it, but iirc that CPU was overclocked as well

Link, LINK!!

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #38 on:** February 19, 2008, 02:54 PM »

Try http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7263668346151253701

and

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7870362821870979072&q=overheat

Lashiec · « **Reply #39 on:** February 19, 2008, 03:03 PM »

Cool, thanks! And it goes BOOM!

Oh, man, the Duron made a hole in the table

nosh · « **Reply #40 on:** February 19, 2008, 08:34 PM »

Quote from: Lashiec on February 19, 2008, 03:03 PM

Oh, man, the Duron made a hole in the table

Ouch!

Update: Took the good doctor's advice and got me a new cabinet - a big suction fan in the front, right in front of the HDDs which are a good 2 inches apart. Two suction fans at the side- a big one pitching right at the CPU, a smaller one at the gfx card. A bigger exhaust at the rear, in addition to the regular sized one that came with the cabinet. Took my old cabinet's exhaust and attached it to the gfx card - way easier than I'd expected. So totally I have uh... six fans, seven counting the PSU.

Right, the HDDs are sitting at 35°, the GPU is at 38° (

) & the Prescott... well, it's hovering between 80 & 90 - blame Intel, not me! Will check out the videos later, now that it's something that happens to other people and (hopefully) not me, I may even see the humor in it.

PS: All three large fans at the front, side & rear have this eerie neon blue light, so now when the lights are turned out my bedroom looks really shady - or really cool - depending on who you are.

f0dder · « **Reply #41 on:** February 19, 2008, 11:21 PM »

Holy moley, that's a lot of airflow! But ugh, still 80-90C? Those CPUs are insanely hot... or perhaps you should get a better heatsink for it, something *big*, with decently applied thermal paste.

Lashiec · « **Reply #42 on:** February 19, 2008, 11:25 PM »

This one will suffice

Or a Thermalright Ultra 120, that would definitely bring those temps down.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #43 on:** February 19, 2008, 11:29 PM »

Wow - but do you need a house sized case for that? And does the weight bend your mobo?

Lashiec · « **Reply #44 on:** February 19, 2008, 11:32 PM »

Disclaimer: It's not the cooler I use, just some crazy device someone spotted in another forum. We haven't decided if that could bend the motherboard or not

f0dder · « **Reply #45 on:** February 19, 2008, 11:33 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on February 19, 2008, 11:29 PM

Wow - but do you need a house sized case for that? And does the weight bend your mobo?

Good point to make, many of the heavier HSFs come with warnings against moving your case when the heatsink is attached... and some require (either recommended by manufacturer, or just by common sense) some support straps

. Aluminum fins for heatpipe designs tend to be pretty thin and light, though.

nosh · « **Reply #46 on:** February 20, 2008, 06:49 AM »

No more pampering the stupid CPU. I don't expect it to burn out but if it does - great! I'll have no option but to go for a dual (or quad) core then!

mouser · « **Reply #47 on:** February 20, 2008, 06:57 AM »

Quote

No more pampering the stupid CPU.

i love it

now that's the proper attitude if you ask me.

nosh · « **Reply #48 on:** February 20, 2008, 07:47 PM »

Thank you, mouser!

mouser · « **Reply #49 on:** February 20, 2008, 07:56 PM »

I think that should be put on a t-shirt and sold:
"No more pampering the stupid CPU."