New all-round rig

Another update, though not much new to report... I couldn't get the fan today, and the keyboard hasn't arrived either. The sum total is that it doesn't look like I'll be able to put the computer together before Monday at the latest. There's still the chance that the keyboard might reach tomorrow, but I'm not placing much faith in it.
 
I managed to break the mounting bracket for the fan, so now I'm in the market for a new heatsink and fan combination. :( I thought of a Zalman CNPS9500, but apparently that's expensive and louder than the competition.

Any suggestions for a quiet, efficient, and reasonably cheap heatsink/fan combo? I don't plan to overclock my CPU, but I do want it running cool with minimal noise. Oh, and there's not a lot of space around the CPU, so it needs to be small. I'm considering the Noctua NH-U9 (I think the U12 would be too large, since it has a 120mm fan), or maybe the Thermalright HR-01, which is fanless... but that seems to be a bit too tall for my case. Maybe the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro?

After searching around a bit more, the Thermalright MST-9775 might be just up my alley. Anyone have any experience with this?

Right, I just went and did some actual measurement rather than just hypothesis, and my case has 18cm of headroom if a cooler were mounted vertically on the CPU (i.e. horizontally in the case).

Apparently the Scythe Ninja Plus will fit onto a Foxconn P9657AA. Since it has rave reviews everywhere I look, perhaps I should get that.

I've ordered a Scythe Ninja Plus Rev. B. It should reach on Tuesday, with any luck.
 
Question: Is it okay to apply one kind of thermal grease when there's already another on the CPU? I have some of the thermal grease from the stock cooler, which I can't use, and will apparently need to put another kind for the Ninja.
 
yea its ok to put a different type of virtual paste on, just be sure to totally clean off the old thermal paste :)
 
Okay... I've put everything together and connected up the monitor keyboard, and the computer comes on, but there's no display. I can't tell if it's beeping because I couldn't connect the computer speaker (there's no connector on the motherboard). I did try reinstalling the RAM in the same slots, to no avail. Also, the hard disk LED stays on, and I'm not sure whether I might have wired that up wrong.

Any suggestions on what I could check? I've tried tightening all the connectors and pushing down gently on the graphics card to make sure it's in place...
 
Read Manual and connect all the wires appropriately... Make sure that ur mobo doesnt touch the case... Its hard to say anything in this stage. first u connect the speakers as well nd see if gives u any kind of beeps...

Aankhen said:
(there's no connector on the motherboard)
Click to expand...
Its usually in the corner of Mobos, there you will find heaps of pins for pwr grnd etc etc....
 
Karanislove said:
Read Manual and connect all the wires appropriately...
Click to expand...
Done that.
Make sure that ur mobo doesnt touch the case...
Click to expand...
Done that.
Its hard to say anything in this stage. first u connect the speakers as well nd see if gives u any kind of beeps...

Its usually in the corner of Mobos, there you will find heaps of pins for pwr grnd etc etc....
Click to expand...
As I told you, there is no speaker connector on this motherboard. It's a Foxconn P9657AA; if you can find a speaker connector, I'd be most obliged.

When I press the power button, the DVD drive shows some activity (I put a Windows XP CD in it). All the fans are working and the graphics card seems to heat up a bit. I can't tell for sure whether the card is working since it's passively cooled; no fan.

I've tried reconnecting the DVI cable in every which way. I've tried disconnecting the hard disk and DVD drive. I've tried reinstalling the RAM, as I mentioned above.

I'm quite at a loss. :(

EDIT:
Did some research and apparently the "SPEAKER" connector is optional on this motherboard, and my SKU doesn't include it.
 
Okay, here's the latest. I finally found out that I needed to connect the EPS12V CPU connectors, which you do on the ZM-600HP by connecting the "CPU2" cable and combining it with the "CPU1" cable. Now I can hear it POST, with a single beep (which presumably means it went alright), but I still get no signal. I've tried reconnecting the monitor cables and everything, but no luck so far.
 
Success! I fiddled around a bit, moving memory between banks and moving wires away from circuit boards, and... it's working! :D

I've even shifted the case around and stuff, and it's still working (touchwood). Now I'm installing Windows. Let's just pretend we already got the "waste of a good PC" jokes out of the way. :p

EDIT:
One thing, though: it's only recognizing 1 GB of RAM. The other one must be loose or something. I don't feel like going in to check it again right now, though.
 
I think maybe one ram slot is faulty? if it is inserted right, i had this wierd problem with my mobo, if i did not insert the 2 sticks of ram in a certain way, i couldent boot, no signal all the time :s, i think there is a small fault with my mobo that doesent cause much problems except for the ram, maybe you may have a similar faulty.
 
I should warn you that Foxconn's are not very good motherboards, I had several DOA from newegg. They are cheap, but you end up paying for it one way or the other. You might find a little notice in the manual about recognizing ram sticks.... I would advise you stick with Asus or DFI. DFI has some stability problems, but it has great workmanship and a gazillion customization options.

__
-Goodluck, Godspeed.
 
Willz said:
I think maybe one ram slot is faulty? if it is inserted right, i had this wierd problem with my mobo, if i did not insert the 2 sticks of ram in a certain way, i couldent boot, no signal all the time :s, i think there is a small fault with my mobo that doesent cause much problems except for the ram, maybe you may have a similar faulty.
Click to expand...
Looks like that is the case... I switched the RAM from one pair of banks to the other pair, and now the full 2 GB is showing up. :dry:
Tango Down said:
I should warn you that Foxconn's are not very good motherboards, I had several DOA from newegg. They are cheap, but you end up paying for it one way or the other. You might find a little notice in the manual about recognizing ram sticks.... I would advise you stick with Asus or DFI. DFI has some stability problems, but it has great workmanship and a gazillion customization options.
Click to expand...
I appreciate the advice, but I'm already running my computer using that motherboard, so it's a little late. :) I knew that Foxconn is cheap; however, I'm not planning to stick with most of the components in my computer for long (prime candidates for upgrades: motherboard and case). When I switch motherboards, it'll be to something much more solid. I'm fine for now though. :D
 
New problem: it seems that heavy gaming causes my video card to overheat. I first noticed when I played Company of Heroes a couple of days ago: a little while into the very first tutorial, and the computer restarted, with no output to the monitor and a long beep sounding over and over again. I had to power it off and on again. I tried playing CoH again, only to have it crash again (though not at exactly the same point). I thought perhaps CoH alone was too much, but over the past few days I've seen it happen again in everything from The Settlers II to Need For Speed: Carbon.

I can't say for sure what the temperatures are on the CPU and GPU right when it crashes. However, I do occasionally check the temperatures while gaming, and the CPU is never near the danger point; the GPU hovers around 80°C. I can't check the GPU temperature till I boot into Windows, so I never see it above 80. I check the CPU temperature as soon as I can (which is maybe 20-25 seconds after the fact, since I have to wait to get into the BIOS PC Health page); it's never been at more than 40°C.

My money is on the graphics card to be the cause since it's passively-cooled and this case doesn't have very good airflow, especially with a floppy drive and two hard disks. That said, there's every chance that I may be completely off-base, so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know! I'm going to try moving the hard disks around a bit tomorrow to see if that fixes the problem.
 
On a card like that i would get a decent cooler with a fan on. I would also try Memtest86 and give your computer 12 hours on that, you download this program, burn it to cd, or use floppy and test it before going into windows, it actually is possible that the ram could be causing resets. 80 degrees shouldent cause resets though, my X800XT used to peak at 85 degrees causing resets, 80 degrees was the safe limit though.
 
Willz said:
On a card like that i would get a decent cooler with a fan on.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure whether a VGA cooler would fit on the card, because of the huge heatsink already in place. Also, a VGA cooler is an additional expense… it might make more sense to return this card and get the actively-cooled version.
I would also try Memtest86 and give your computer 12 hours on that, you download this program, burn it to cd, or use floppy and test it before going into windows, it actually is possible that the ram could be causing resets.
Click to expand...
I'll check it out… not sure when I can run it so it goes for 12 hours, though.
80 degrees shouldent cause resets though, my X800XT used to peak at 85 degrees causing resets, 80 degrees was the safe limit though.
Click to expand...
Well, as I said, I can't say for sure what the temperature is right when it crashes. I only know what the temperature is when I perform my occasional checks and when I reboot. It might easily be going up to 85° in the background without my knowing.
 
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