Tech Support

[KoKo5oVaR]

My pre alzheimer was the problem, i can't blame my poor computer on that.

[Sentura]

Oh man I'm glad I'm not the only one with that problem... as in the alzheimer, light edition. Not with computers.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Sentura

[selmitto]

Thanks everyone for the help so far

I didn't have the time today to dismantle the GPU, but I'll do a massive clean up tomorrow.

 

According to SIW, these are the temperatures and voltages:

 

Minos, the mobo (motherboard?) seems fine then, right? 42~44ºC

 

According to my test with a small piece of paper placed very close the the coolers:

• The CPU's cooler: blows air INTO the CPU.
• The GPU's fan: blows air INTO the GPU.
• The back cooler: blows air INTO the case.
• The power supply's fan: blows air OUT of the case (it's placed right above the back cooler).

(I don't know the difference between cooler and fan, hence the confusion above. Sorry about that).

 

It seems that my coolers are retarded. I'll see if I can place the back cooler on the opposite side, because it should be blowing air to the outside, correct? (well, at least according to that image on the link Thrik posted - thanks for that, I'll read that).

 

My power supply is a Seventeam ST-650z-AF (80 Plus Bronze certified, 650Watts Continuous, Build in STNC fan control etc). So I believe that it isn't under-supplying...

 

Hmm that's good to know that open cases are bad (and I should feel bad!). I'll let it closed then :/

I'll see if I can find a small fan to place it near my case, KoKo5oVaR! Thanks for the suggestion

[blackdog]

Hot air goes up, so my friends who had some sweet machines built, they all had:

1 fan in the lower-front of the case, sucking in air

2 fans on the lower of the side you normally open, sucking in air

1 fan on the top, sucking out air

Yeah, power supply definitely seems a good piece

Btw it could all be that the heat paste ("thermal compound") wasn't applied correctly when the graphic card was assembled and you really need to disassemble the heat sink and apply some new one.

 

Cheap aesthetic solution : open the case and put a regular fan (for cooling real people) beside it  

Yeah, that's what I meant before as to "run a quick test". If you do just that and everything is fine, you know what it is. I was doing the same during the hottest weeks when I still had a PC.

But I recommend the slot cleaning because I had something like that happening to me in the past with a PC i borrowed.

Edited July 14, 2013 by blackdog

[dux]

Stop blahblahblahing and clean the balls off of it and get back to us. Wasting cleaning time.

[Buddy]

Just clean the card and pc, check if all vents are working properly etc

[Thrik]

Yeah the way your fans are working doesn't sound correct, I'm pretty sure the CPU and GPU fans are meant to be sucking air away from the components unless there's some new technology I've not heard of, lol. In my experience the main things that cause overheating from most to least:

1. Dust inside the heatsink/fan (this is by far the most damaging factor, which is why I highly recommend a closed case with dust filters on the fans)
2. Thermal paste needs reapplying because the cooler was connected badly and rubbed it off, or maybe it's just old
3. Bad air flow

I'd tackle those in order before worrying about anything else. The difference dust and thermal paste can make runs into the 10s of degrees Celsius.

[blackdog]

Yeah the way your fans are working doesn't sound correct, I'm pretty sure the CPU and GPU fans are meant to be sucking air away from the components

No it is correct as far as I know:

look for "cpu fan diagram" and all the illustrations show that cool air is sucked in to blow on the heat-sink, works the same as for your car

Edited July 15, 2013 by blackdog

[Thrik]

Oh OK, that's all right then. I'm still sure my (old) CPU does it the other way round but I'm totally not ripping everything open to check, lol. Both probably accomplish about the same anyway, because if you suck air away then cold air rushes in to replace it. I remember learning that when I built a HTPC with no existing fans and had to figure out a good layout. Cooling becomes serious business when there's so much power in such a tiny case!

[Buddy]

Clean the dust and stop with the science. It fixes 95% of overheating problems.

[Kinky]

Clean the dust and stop with the science. It fixes 95% of overheating problems.

 

QFT

[Taylor Swift]

your local temperature (case temperature is abnormally high)...

 

you said you have your case open.

 

do not do so. it messes with the airflow in your case. you need to have great airflow inside your case..

 

there iss so much i could tell ya! dont have the time

 

.. but seriusly stop complaining about these temps! get a watercooling solution for your CPu and GPU.

 

 

it will be some work but its all worth it

Edited July 15, 2013 by Nz-Nexus

[Thrik]

I tell you, dust filters are one of the best investments ever. Buy, buy, buy!

 

Just remember to occasionally vacuum clean them.

[blackdog]

Woa, filters, simple solution; I always thought they could be useful... I only had never seen anybody selling those!

[BaRRaKID]

Regarding air flow inside the case it's easier and mos effective to have one fan at the front (or more, some cases have brackets for two fans at the front in order to blow fresh air directly into the hard drives) pushing air into the case and one at the back pushing air out. This works well on most computers, there's usually no need for more than that. It can be a bit tricky to mount the front fans since this usually requires removing the front panel, but it's not that hard. You should have this setup regardless of what the power supply fan is doing (some push air into the case, some push air out, it depends), look at the PSU as a separate system.

 

Like mentioned before it's also important to have air filters on the fans to avoid pushing dust inside the computer. It's usually enough to put the filters only on the fans that are pushing air into the case, in this case that would be the front fan. Even more important is to clean the dust regularly, but DON'T use a vacuum cleaner since they can generate static electricity and brake some of the components. If you've an air compressor use that, if not most computer stores will also sell compressed air cans, they're just spray cans that throw air instead of paint or whatever, you only have to be careful and not press on the cap for too long since the can starts to freeze if you do. If you can't find any of that just use a brush to clean the dust.

 

Finally you should change the thermal paste as well. If you remove the heat sink there is usually a grey paste (it can also be white or  an adhesive instead of a paste) between the heat sink and the component, that's thermal paste. It's used to create perfect contact between the heat sink and the component, since the metals used are not perfectly smooth (this is also a good way to check the quality of your heat sink, look at it's base and check how reflective it is, the smoother the surface of the metal the more reflective it will be meaning that the heat sink is of higher quality) there will be some small (microscopic) spots in which the heat sink doesn't touch the component making those spots hotter than the rest. The thermal paste will fill those spots so that the component heat is dissipated evenly along the component.

To change the thermal paste first remove the old thermal paste using cotton swabs with alcohol (some of it may have turned solid by now, just try to take it out with your fingernail without scratching the metal), then apply the new thermal paste in a very thin layer on the surface of the component, not on the heat sink. It's easier to apply and to measure the quantity it if you buy the ones that use a brush (like the ones from Zalman http://www.zalman.co.kr/global/product/Product_Read.php?Idx=221) instead of a syringe or a squirt. After changing the thermal paste and assembling everything turn on the computer and let it on for a few minutes (around half an hour) to let the thermal paste "cook", this means that it will take a couple of minutes for the paste to start acting and for the temperatures to drop.

And that's it, it might sound hard but it's actually something fairly easy to do.

 

Hope this helps