As some of you may recall, I bought parts to build a new computer a little over a month ago. My tale last left off with me awaiting the arrival of a heat sink and fan, so I could actually, you know, turn the new comuter on without melting my desk. Let us pick things up there.
Having ordered it from Newegg, it arrived fairly quickly. When I first opened it, I was concerned that it wasn’t going to fit inside the case; the thing is massive. I actually ended up having to remove the exhaust port tube from the interior of my case – the black pastic thing on the right panel:
Not a problem, not a problem, I had a fan I wanted to mount there anyway…
After removing the tube, I fought with the monstrosity for 20 minutes or so to get it mounted on the CPU. For those who have never mounted a heat sink and fan on a CPU, it can be a real pain in the butt. The instructions make it sound easy – just slip the clips over one side, then the other side, then pull the lever, done! – but it’s actually much more troublesome than that. It’s easy to get the clips over one side, but when you start moving the heatsink around to get the clips down over the other side, guess what happens? The first clips you mounted slide off. D’oh.
Anyroad – after a bit of frustration and a few choice words aimed at the heatsink, it was mounted and plugged into the motherboard. Upon powering up, the computer nor my desk melted; success. Kind of, anyway. Bet you saw that coming, didn’t you?
I went through the usual routine then, installing Windows, installing programs, etc. The computer worked (and continues to work!) fine. Recently, however, I ran into a few issues, though. Namely, after running a system intensive game for a while, I’d get the very occasional system reboot, or the graphics would mess up and then the system would reboot. Ruh roh; sounds like it’s getting too hot in my case.
I downloaded a nifty little application called SpeedFan, which, along with telling you the RPMs of your fans, also displays the various temperature readings of your hardware: CPU, CPU ambient, GPU, etc. While the temperatures were a little warm for my likings, what really shocked me was the RPM of my CPU fan: 800! Having bought this thing, I expected to see a minimum of 900, and a maximum of 2200. Not only was it running 100RPM below specifications, it was also never going any higher, even when I configured SpeedFan to speed the fan up at a lower temperature reading.
I thought that perhaps the fan didn’t like SpeedFan, or vice versa, so I installed the software that came with my motherboard, EasyTune Pro 5, to see if it could control the fan. I was unable to figure the program out, as it’s utter junk, but what it did do was provide an important piece of the puzzle. When I looked at its hardware monitoring display, it showed that my SYSTEM fan was running at 800RPM, and next to the CPU fan reading, there was… well, a red, blinking exclamation point. Ummm… that doesn’t sound good, now does it?
It then occurred to me that the software was just reporting what the hardware was telling it, so something was obviously wrong on the hardware side. I popped the case open, and after referring to my motherboard manual again, I discovered the problem. Apparently, the plugs on the motherboard labeled CPU_FAN and SYS_FAN are identical. Except one is labeled CPU_FAN and SYS_FAN, of course (oops). They both provide the same amount of base juice, so, for example, plugging your CPU fan into the SYS_FAN plug won’t make anything blow up. It’ll just make your CPU fan unable to increase its RPM as it’s supposed to.
May I repeat a word from above? Oops. After plugging the CPU fan in where it was supposed to be plugged in, amazingly, it started to function correctly. When launching a system intensive application, the RPMs would jump up to not 2200 but 2300.
Apparently, one needs to not only RTFM, but also pay attention to what it’s telling you. Be gentle in the comments.
Comments 6
One does need to rtfm as well as pay attention. I’ve never done much in the way of assembling my own machines, apart from standing by and thinking: oops. I do know very well what you mean though.
Glad you got the machine working at last. next up some posts about how fun it is to play around with?
Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 9:49 am ¶Yeah, perhaps; dunno’ how much fun it would be to read about me enjoying Company of Heroes on max settings, or Crysis.
Off topic: have you lost weight? You look much thinner in that new picture (gravatar).
Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 9:58 am ¶Oh the joys of assembling computers. I once put together and pulled apart a new computer TWICE because I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t powering up. The 4 Pin Molex 12V Power Connector was to blame, or actually I was because I forgot to plug it in.
There was another time that I forgot the spacers between the board and the case and had my father not noticed that one I would have shorted the entire mobo.
Anyway, glad to hear you got it working. Do let us know how it works though, some screenies would be nice
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Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:45 pm ¶I must admit, I was rather amused by your computer tale.
All in all, I think that you’ve just proven that you are a typical male. I bet you get yourself really lost before asking for directions, too.
Was that gentle enough for you?
Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 6:21 pm ¶Tom: Do you recall my post, in which I talked about thinking my video card upgrade was dead? It was because it requires a power supply connector to be connected directly to it, and I had failed to do that.
I did something similar with spacers. I mounted the motherboard on all of the spacers, only to notice that I’d missed putting in ONE of the spaces – right in the middle of the motherboard. Fearing that it would lead to a short, I took it all out and started over. D’oh.
Fig: I don’t get lost.
(Quickly, I need knee high rubber boots! Tis’ getting thick in here!)
Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 10:28 am ¶Sorry ’bout the late reply. First, yes, I did lose quite some weight over the last two years, but most in the last couple months. As for Crysis, a colleague bought that one, so why not do a review of your experiences.
Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 12:19 pm ¶Post a Comment