PC Help *Solved*

[KBZ]

Been running well for sometime now.

I'm going to conclude that the main culprit is the case and its poor airflow. Also, 1 intake at the front and one exhaust at the back just isn't enough these days and this box doesn't allow for any more fans. As a result I need the gpu undercloked and gpu fan maxed at load to compensate. Might change the case one day as unclocking sucks as much as the loud fan blows (ho ho!). Pci fans don't seem very effective and this cooler is my only other option...and offers no exhaust.

moral of the story, I'm no better a pc builder than microsoft...

[KBZ]

Edited my first post with a final conclusion and some pictures.

thanks guys!

[jonny5]

Edited my first post with a final conclusion and some pictures.

thanks guys!

lolz...ya...i just keep the side off my case now....means i have to dust more often, but whatever....stays cool

[KBZ]

Edited my first post with a final conclusion and some pictures.

thanks guys!

lolz...ya...i just keep the side off my case now....means i have to dust more often, but whatever....stays cool

Generally having the side of the case open will cause higher temperature since there is no airflow. I tried keeping the side off for a bit but I found everything overheating way more often than with the case one.

If the case is off, many recommend having any old household fan blowing into the open case. It's loud and awkward but it will bring every temp down like 30C :p

[jonny5]

Edited my first post with a final conclusion and some pictures.

thanks guys!

lolz...ya...i just keep the side off my case now....means i have to dust more often, but whatever....stays cool

Generally having the side of the case open will cause higher temperature since there is no airflow. I tried keeping the side off for a bit but I found everything overheating way more often than with the case one.

If the case is off, many recommend having any old household fan blowing into the open case. It's loud and awkward but it will bring every temp down like 30C :p

hmmm...good point...i might throw it back on and see how much of a difference it makes

but it definitely runs cooler under load with the side off(GPU)....i really should just add some fans...all my case has is like 1x 80mm fan in the back ....my graphics card is the only thing that really heats up anyways

tbh i just need to rebuild my shit....i am basically trying to pack way too many HDD's and too much beef into a non-gaming case....i dont think they ever intended this much gear to be shoehorned into this case....its not really suited to dissipating the amount of heat i generate

[StarCreator]

I can't help but notice you have your CPU cooler mounted horizontally, with the air presumably being blown upwards into the power supply. IMO, it's much better to mount it vertically, so that the air is blowing out the rear of the case. This, of course, has nothing to do with cooling the graphics card, but it was the first thing I saw. ^^;

I personally use a Micro ATX "cube"... to be specific, a Thermaltake LANBOX Lite, with the clear side panels. This machine has seen five separate video cards - an 8600GTS, two 9600GT's, an HD3870, and the current HD4870, all of which pretty much draw air straight from the side vent since there's nothing in between. The only cards I've had problems with at all were the 9600GT's and the HD3870 - but I swapped motherboards before changing to the HD4870, so I'm not entirely sure if more of the fault lied with the motherboard or the graphics cards themselves.

[KBZ]

I can't help but notice you have your CPU cooler mounted horizontally, with the air presumably being blown upwards into the power supply. IMO, it's much better to mount it vertically, so that the air is blowing out the rear of the case. This, of course, has nothing to do with cooling the graphics card, but it was the first thing I saw. ^^;

yeah I wanted to mount it vertically, but my motherboard just isn't setup for it. The damn thing also covers TWO (!!) of my ram slots. Building a pc used to be a lot more straight forward >_<

[jonny5]

lolz...i didnt look very closely at your pics....that looks down right spacious compared to mine

i keep meaning to get a better case, but then i think 'i will just wait until i build my next rig'....

meh....thankfully ive not had any of the issues you had....thank god cuz i almost bought the same GPU when you got yours(around the same time anyways)....

[KBZ]

Well I think the reason I had such crazy heat problems was that I bought a non-gaming case and put in an OC'd video card. I think it might have just raised the heat levels enough in this case to overheat the HDD.

Wish I had bought a different case now cause I would have liked to upgrade to a crossfirex setup down the line.