newdirection Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 For anyone interested I've just built a new PC. Here is the spec.: Asus PFN32-SLI Premium M'board Intel Quad Core Q6600 NZXT Hush Case Coolermaster Extreme Power 650W PS XFX 8800 GTS Graphics card (Pre-overclocked) 4 GB DDR2 800MHZ (Corsair) SATA 320GB HD LG Lightscribe DVD writer I haven't build a PC for a while but thought I'd give it a go. I arrived at this spec. by looking at some builds on ebay and looking on various forums (inc. CGArchitect) about the parts. Originally I was going to go for a Dell but there always seemed to be a compromise on price or features. eg couldn't get 800Mhz RAM or the 8800 GTS without paying significantly more. It took me a day (a long day-up till 2 in morning!) including buying the parts (20 mins drive away to the supplier), returning the motherboard because it had been used and the pins were bent and getting stuck into it, building and loading Windows. I paid just over £800 for the components. That was top of my budget (I'm a poor student). The build went OK (so far so good anyway). I used to build servers a few years ago but was I was out of practice. The main problems I had were pushing the CPU fan into the motherboard, seems like bad design from Intel to me. Also do not buy this Coolermaster PSU. It is not "silent tech." or whatever they claim, it is bloody noisy! I'm going to live with it for the time being. Loaded up XP 32bit, SP2, 3DS Max 8. The results: well so far I'm happy but I had been working on a seven year old machine. I'd purchased one of the Archexteriors series from Evermotion and these files would just not open on that PC. Some of these files have 2+ million faces and it took 10 mins to update the view everytime I moved the camera. The new machine copes no problem. Initially I just installed 2GB. When I put 4GB in Windows seemed to lock up after using Max. I put the /3GB switch as an option in the boot.ini but then the latest NVidia driver would not load. Someone posted on the Nvidia forum that adding /userva=3030 would work and it did. Well the driver now loads anyway. You can't be sure how stable things are till after a week or so. My processor temp seems to go from about 25deg to 60deg when fully pushed. I hope this is normal! I have adjusted the fan settings in the bios to "silent" in order to keep it as quiet as possible. I'm posting this because I know what it's like when you're trying to sort a new machine. £800 is alot of money to me and I can't afford to make mistakes. So if anyone has any questions I'd be pleased to help though I am nowhere near a pro when it comes to hardware. So far, so good for me and I think my productivity is about to go through the roof! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 60C is okay but you could do better by installing a better CPU cooler - the one Intel gives you isn't very good at all. Also, with a good cooler you can overclock the Q6600 over 3GHz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AFK_Matrix Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 Nice buy man. As AJ said get a different CPU cooler something like a Tuniq Tower for £30. If you do get a new cooler purchase some Arctic Silver Thermal paste to put on the CPU before putting your new cooler on. Remember to remove any pads, paste already on the cpu. As for a new PSU go with either Enermax, Seasonic or Tagan there all good solid CPU's and arn't loud either. Plus if you want the full use of your 4GB you will need a 64bit operating system which means either XP 64bit or Vista 64bit. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newdirection Posted August 16, 2007 Author Share Posted August 16, 2007 Hmm. On further investigation I haven't been able to get 4GB working without crashes. I've added the 3GB switch and played with the /userva setting (anything between 2500 and 3030) but Windows tends to completely lock up after a period of time. Looks like I'm going to have to stick to 2GB for the moment until I shell out for 64bit OS. What are the experiences with Vista stability in general so far? I could buy Vista instead of 64bit XP but want something thats solid. I'll be using Max 8 until I can shell out for the student version of Max 9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 60C is okay but you could do better by installing a better CPU cooler - the one Intel gives you isn't very good at all. Also, with a good cooler you can overclock the Q6600 over 3GHz. If you want a good budget cooler try the Freezer 7 pro from arctic cooling. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-017-AR It gives great results for a tiny price and you can fit it without having to remove your motherboard. Also comes with thermal interface pre-applied. I'm thinking of getting one myself as my core2 duo runs quite hot too (62 under load). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikedeerf Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 I just finished building my new machine as well. I can attest for the Freezer 7 Pro - I installed it with the pre-applied thermal paste, and have my Q6000 running at 3.2GHz without any trouble (G0 stepping). I also originally built it with 2GB, but changed my mind and put another 2GB in last night. Adam - 4GB is running fine for me, without any 3GB switches or Nvidia tricks, etc. I'd suggest testing your memory - here's a link to the Windows Memory Diagnostic (free, available lots of places): http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64964-page,1-c,downloads/description.html There's also Memtest86, but I can't get that one to boot up with 4GB. The Windows test boots, with a message that it can't test the uppermost end of the memory, but runs the test fine on what it CAN access. Check to see if you have bad RAM. You could also put one chip in at a time and run either the Win test or the Memtest86 tests. As for power supply, I'm using a Corsair HX520 - it's manufactured by Seasonic, with a Corsair badge on it. It's extremely quiet. You can barely hear the PC when it's on. Check silentpcreview.com for other suggestions too. The HX520 is pretty much the same as the Seasonic S12, but with modular cables at a lower wattage than the M12... Here's what I'm running: Case: Antec P182 (includes 3 120mm fans - all running on lowest speed) M/B: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R CPU: Intel Q6600, G0 stepping (default=2.4GHz, overclocked to 3.2GHZ) HSF: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (factory paste, not Arctic Silver) Mem: (2) A-Data 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 sets (it's cheap) Video: MSI 8600GT 256MB, PASSIVE cooling (note: I don't play any newer games; this card is plenty fast for displaying stuff in Viz 2008, and doesn't make any noise. But DirectX 10 games would make it cry... FYI.) HDD: (4) 250GB Seagate drives in RAID 10, with a RAID 0 swapfile. Plus (1) additional 250GB hot spare. (overkill? Yes. But I still haven't recovered all my data from a drive failure a year ago...) that's the important stuff. I may be able to run the CPU a little faster; but I want stability first. I ran Orthos stress testing for several hours on the current setup. When I have time for more stress testing, I'll try fiddling with settings a little more. Anyhoo, sorry for the long post. Hope it helps to know what someone else is doing with similar hardware. To sum it up: make sure you don't have a bad RAM chip; if you want to overclock at all, get a different HSF (and make sure you have good airflow in the case); if your PSU is too loud, try a unit recommended/tested by silentpcreview. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Could you do me a favor and go to http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/ to download Core Temp, and let me know what temperatures it reports when idle and after running at 100% for a minute or two? (If you don't yet have anything on it that will reliably make it run at 100% for a minute or two, try Cinebench 10.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikedeerf Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 No problem, I'll download it now and run it when I get home. I've been monitoring my temps with RMClock, but can't remember the results for certain - I'll write it down and post that tomorrow too. I'll run Orthos (I assign one instance to Cores 0&1, and a second instance to Cores 2&3) to keep usage at 100%. (Which brings to mind a completely unrelated tip: does everyone know you can right click on a process in the task manager and set processor affinity? I just discovered that the other night. Viz was cranking on a rendering, and my wife wanted to browse the web. Predictably, it was crawling. I right-clicked on Viz, turned off Core 0, and voila! Internet Explorer was running full-speed on Core 0, while Viz/Mental Ray kept working on the other 3. The rendering did eventually crash, but it was an out-of-memory thing, an hour or so later, not related to the affinity switch as far as I can tell (trees imported from Vue 5, very long story...) Maybe I'm the last to know, but I was pretty excited to hear my wife say "that's cool" in regard to a computer. :-) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newdirection Posted August 22, 2007 Author Share Posted August 22, 2007 Thanks Brian. I'll look at the memory testing. Are you running XP 32bit with Max 8 SP3? I swapped my PSU today for the Corsair 620w model. I am completely amazed. I can't hear it all - the Coolermaster was constant racket regardless of the load. Had to pay out another £50 but completely worth it. NOW I can hear the CPU but will get the aformentioned cooler to sort that out (thanks Stephen - thats a complete bargain). Will continue optimizing and post results. But later cos England are playing Germany on the TV tonight! Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikedeerf Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 I'm running XP 32bit, but with Viz 2008. So it could be a difference between the Max 8 engine and the Max 9 engine, but I think it'll be easier to test the memory first and then dig into 8 vs. 9 if need be, rather than the other way around. Glad to hear the PSU's working out for you! Must be nice to live where you can watch quality soccer/football... enjoy the game! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pipjor Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 i've also bought the Artic Cooling Freezer 7 fan, but i'm running hot, i wanted to at least try to OC alittle but i'm already to hot, anybody know what i may be doing wrong..thanks EVGA 680i SLI-------------------Motherboard Intel Quad Core Q6600-----------CPU Lian Li PC-60APlus II -----------case Artic Cooling Freezer 7---------CPU Cooler Corsair CMPSU-620 HX 620W---power suppley Quadro FX560------------------video Patriot 2GB(2x1GB) DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 XP 32-bit home------------------OS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Is it hot in the room where the computer is? Are the vents in the case blocked by anything? Or very dusty? Is the CPU cooler mounter properly? (Those stupid pegs can be hard to work with, I've screwed it up a couple times.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pipjor Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 it's currently 106F in Atlanta, we set all kinds of weather records in August, my 20yr old central AC units shruggles to keep the home at 78F usally is about 80F... no dust, my wife is a great housekeeper:) nothing blocking the vents.. could be the plugs, i jsut built this PC and seems i dont remeber hearing all the pins "snap"??? if i yank off this fan i'll have to apply paste when i put it back on right?? thanks for your time.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 See if all the posts for the heat sink are tightly seated. And did you use thermal paste? What kind and how did you apply it? You want to make a fairly thin coating of the stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pipjor Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Artic Cooling Freezer 7 comes with paste already on it... i'll try to reseed... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikedeerf Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Ok, I just ran the tests. First off, I should say what should always go without saying: I don't necessarily know what I'm doing - I'm not a computer engineer, etc. etc. I'm comfortable with a temperature range because I am, not because everyone should be. That said, I'll summarize my limited and/or wrong information: Lots of threads have discussed the B3 stepping vs. G0 stepping, but for convenience I'll re-post these links: B3 specs: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL9UM G0 specs: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLACR Intel's listed thermal spec for the G0 (my CPU) is 71C. B3=62.2C. My case has (2) 120mm fans near the processor, each with a 3-speed switch. I ran Orthos for over an hour, (1) instance stressing Cores 0&1, (1) instance stressing Cores 2&3. The test I used is "Small FFTs - stress CPU" I monitored temps with both Core Temp 0.95 and RMClock 2.25. They agreed with each other within a degree in all cases, so I'll just list the temps per Core Temp. Note that Speedfan records temperatures 15C lower at all times for this processor - a google search will bring up a number of links to that issue. Room Temperature = 74F/23C Idle Core Temps = 49C, 49C, 48C, 47C (note: 2.1GHz - CPU drops to 6x multiplier when idle) Full Load, case fans on high = 62C, 62C, 58C, 58C (and extremely loud) Full Load, case fans on med = 63C, 63C, 59C, 59C Full Load, case fans on low = 68C, 68C, 63C, 63C AFTER I was done, I realized my processor fan hadn't been running full-speed. Gigabyte included a software package with the M/B, to control overclocking and fan speeds. I had set the M/B to run the HSF at full speed when the CPU reached 56C. But, that 56C is per SpeedFan - equivalent to 70-71C as reported by Core Temp, so... anyway, I didn't have another hour to run - I cranked it up for a couple of minutes, and it actually didn't affect the temps by more than a couple degrees, while it affected the noise level a LOT. One last comment: Intel's "Thermal Specification" is the temperature at the top center of the heat spreader (t_case), while Core Temp is based on DTS, which is supposedly an internal probe near the hottest part of the chip. Depending on who you listen to, the t_case could be 10-15C lower than the DTS temp, or not. In my case, I stopped reading about it because 68C is lower than 71C. 58C or 53C are also lower than 71C. Either way, I'm happy. And tired of fiddling with it. If you have a B3 stepping chip, the distinction will be REALLY important, though. 68 would be over spec; 53-58 would still be within spec. One more time for the record: This is an informational post, because I was asked my temps, not an instructional post. I may very well be an idiot. A lot of people say they don't let their CPU's go over 60C. (but is that a Speedfan 60 or a Core Temp 60?...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Thanks, that helps (for comparison with mine - you're 10C cooler at 200MHz higher than pushed it to and I've still got this stupid stock cooler in there). It means that if my Ultra 120 doesn't fit I can use a Freezer very comfortably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikedeerf Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Excellent - thanks, that DOES help - It's become sort of a bragging rights thing on overclocking forums to say you're running in the 40s or 50s... So I was beginning to question my sanity. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikedeerf Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Adam - How are you making out with the memory test? I hope I didn't sidetrack your thread too badly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newdirection Posted August 23, 2007 Author Share Posted August 23, 2007 Hey no worries, it's been useful. I've put the other 2GB and everything seems to be fine. It just reports in computer properties that 3GB is installed. The BIOS reports 4GB. It actually seems perfectly stable but the 3GB probably prompted me initally to play with the 3GB switch, which then made things unstable. I've also updated my BIOS which could have made a difference. So alls well. My CPU idle temp. (accoding to PCProbe which came with the Asus MB so perhaps not totally accurate) is 54C now. This has changed after first installing the cooling fan (34C idle), reseating (70C+ idle, not seated correctly) then reseating again. Just goes to show the installation of the fan can make a big differece. I have ordered the Arctic Cooling fan today so hope to see a change in noise and temp. I'm hoping that it is easier to install than the Intel one because I had to put worrying amounts of pressure on the MB to get the pegs in. Now I just need to become better at Max to justify my purchase! Cheers all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikedeerf Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 That's great - glad to hear it's working out! I hate spending time and money to build a system and then feeling unsettled about some issue... I definitely hear you about Max skills - I just got clearance to post my first 2 projects, so I guess I'm about to enter the long road of skill improvement. :-) Later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted September 3, 2007 Share Posted September 3, 2007 Hmm. On further investigation I haven't been able to get 4GB working without crashes. I've added the 3GB switch and played with the /userva setting (anything between 2500 and 3030) but Windows tends to completely lock up after a period of time. Looks like I'm going to have to stick to 2GB for the moment until I shell out for 64bit OS. What are the experiences with Vista stability in general so far? I could buy Vista instead of 64bit XP but want something thats solid. I'll be using Max 8 until I can shell out for the student version of Max 9. Get XP64. Two reasons, 1. Vista bites - say goodbye to 0.5GB of ram for no reason/ gain 2. Max9 isn't supported on Vista, you'll need Max 2008 for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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