BSOD & Crashing when gaming/streaming.

Freak, you have a few options here.
1. Get the fan on your current case working, if possible and add the exhaust fan to the front in addition to the one on the back. It is possible that either the switch of speed control knob has gone bad. To check this, you need a multimeter. Start at the wires going into the fan(red+ black-). Check for voltage, if there is voltage, then the fan is bad and a replacement for a fan that size will be very pricey. If there is no voltage, move to the next component of the circuit, the speed control. Same test, on the input, check for power, if there is power, then you have a faulty speed control knob, which you should be able to order from your case manufacturer. If there is no power, the only thing left is the power switch for the fan.

2. If the fan on your current case is bad or you just don't want to mess with it anymore, buy a new case.
Newegg.com - Thermaltake V3 Black Edition VL80001W2Z Black SECC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case This is the case I use. It is cheap and has great ventilation for air cooling. I have the Coolermaster 212+ with push and pull config, one rear exhaust fan, one top intake fan and one front intake fan. My system runs very cool and I am overclocked to 4.5ghz. I know that you probably won't overclock, but with the temperature problems you are already having, without overclocking, I'd recommend as much air flow as possible.

Most importantly, as previously mentioned, proper application of the thermal past and seating of the CPU and Northbridge are priority. I will be glad to answer any more questions that you may have regarding this.

James

I'm going to buy myself a new case, I'm due for one anyways. I've tried every Molex and I've taken the side panel apart to look for any obvious deficiencies and made sure all connections were secure, looks fine, but it just isn't going to work, and to be honest looking at professional reviews of my case, the 360mm fan on full blast might make a 1 - 2 degrees difference at most, for the size and apppeal, it doesn't give much performance since it is fairly low RPM to be silent.

I've been looking at cases for much of today, thank you for your input on that, the Thermaltake V3 looks like a nice case and is within my budget, I'll be looking for a case for around the same price as I am for a heatsink+fan.

So far, I like the look of these two:

Aerocool PGS Vs-9

Thermaltake - Global - V3 BlacX Edition - VL800M1W2N

What do you think?

The first one looks pretty nice, good features. Good price.

The second one is the same as mine only it includes a HDD dock and one USB 3.0 port for twice the cost.

Hey, thought I'd pop back in with my progress, this is what I have done:

What I bought:

Can of Compressed Air
Antistatic Wrist Strap
Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Paste
Arctic Silver ArctiClean
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU cooler
Zalman Z11 Plus case

The Zalman Z11 Plus is amazing for the price, it has so many features and came with 5 fans already installed, 2 of them are dedicated to the hard drives though.

What I did:

I carefully took my computer apart and blasted each component with compressed air to clean off any dust.

When it came to take the motherboard out I placed it down on a flat bench and carefully removed the northbridge heatsink, using a little thermal paste remover on a lint free cloth I wiped the northbridge chip and heatsink until shiny. Applied a little drop of MX-4 Thermal Paste and carefully secured the heatsink. (forgot to use the purifier...)

Then I finished off installing everything into my new case, then focussed on the CPU, removed the stock heatsink, brackets and backplate and secured the new backplate.

I used a couple of drops of thermal paste remover and cleaned the CPU, then a couple of drops of surface purifier until it was nice and shiny. I used the Pea method for the MX-4 Thermal Paste, put a pea sized drop in the middle of the CPU and carefully lowered the Hyper 212 EVO heatsink onto the CPU and gave it a little wiggle, then secured it, attached the fan and finished off the installation.

I now have 4 120mm fans in my case, front and bottom intake, back and top exhaust with two smaller fans built into each door which I believe are exhausts for Hard Drive heat, you can see that design by looking at the case.

I didn't get around to doing a fresh install of Windows 7, but after doing all of that my system seems pretty stable, I can game for as long as I want without crashing, and I did a Prime95 small FFT test and the max temperature of my CPU was 40*C using 93W of power and the fan was only around 850 - 890 RPM, it can go to 1600 RPM if needed... so that's promising.

In HWiNFO64 while running a small FFT test, I'm not sure what these refer to but, Temp 1: 32*C, Temp 2: 48*C, Temp 3: 52*C.

I did a FurMark test and stressed my GPU, the temperature went as high as 73*C and was steady at that temperature for about 20 minutes before I closed and called it a success I guess.


Things still of concern:

Even after putting everything into my new case, I touched the northbridge heatsink and actually burnt the end of my finger after touching it for about 4 seconds... not sure if that's bad. :/

When I tried a large FFT test and torture test, although the temperatures were all very similar to when I was running a small FFT test, after a couple of minutes or so my system does crash, just completely stops responding and requires a forced restart.

Not sure what that really means... but everything else runs flawlessly, no game or video or anything else has created a problem. I was just using the preset tests in Prime95, nothing custom.

James7679 said:

The heat build up on the north bridge could be evident of a fault. You shouldn't crash while running torture tests. Crashing is evidence of something still being amiss. Put in a trouble ticket to Gigabyte if it becomes an issue. Do you have a digital meat thermometer or a laser thermometer? If so, see if you can get a reading on the NorthBridge. Even if sensor 3 is your NorthBridge, 52c(125f), while it is hot, it shouldn't be hot enough to burn your finger.

All in all though, I would say that if you aren't getting BSODs like you were previously getting, then you are in much better shape. I'm glad to hear that you were able to successfully repackage everything.

I am very happy with the results, during normal usage and gaming the system is running smoothly, the small FFT test was no problem, just the large and torture tests caused a crash, but I'm not sure if anything else would ever really create that sort of environment to replicate the crash outside of intentionally trying to stress the hell out of my system using Prime95, so that might not be a problem.

Graphically intensive games don't come anywhere near to 100% CPU usage, or RAM usage, and that's about as hard as I push my PC really.

I'll get a temperature reading of the northbridge heatsink and post the results.

EDIT: Might take a while, turns out I have nothing to do the job in the house, but my Uncle has an Infrared Thermometer so I'll have to find time to go to his and borrow it.

Actually, I might just buy one, they are handy to have, not too expensive either.

Hi again, I bought myself an Infrared Digital Thermometer, checked some temperatures on my PC.

North Bridge Heatsink:

Idle: 55*C
Load (gaming): 65*C

Load (Prime95 Small FFT): 67*C
(held it pointing at the NB Heatsink for as long as I could, it kept rising and slowed at 67*C)

Load (Prime95 Large FFT): 70*C
(crashed about 10 minutes in)

CPU Heatsink:

Load (gaming):
Bottom: 40*C
Average: 33*C
Top: 25*C

CPU Software recording (Prime95 Large FFT): 36*C max.
(This heatsink rules)


Anything look worrying?


EDIT: Since my last post I have crashed once while gaming... ever since then though I can game for hours with no problems, it seemed like a fluke. (I was on a game for 2 hours earlier today to test the temperatures and suffered no crashes)

James7679 said:

Hello Freak, I don't know how I missed this. It seems like your temps are a little high on the northbridge for this motherboard. Contact Gigabyte support if it continues to be an issue. But as you said, you aren't going to be running that high under normal circumstances. Thing is, degradation from heat might cause the crashes to start happening at lower temperatures.

Is there any way that you could get a fan over the northbridge to get air directly on it?

Possibly... I have a spare 80mm sitting in my old case which I haven't thrown out yet, 3 pin and I've used all of my current sockets so I'd need to buy a molex > fan adapter which is cheap enough if I don't have one lying around.

The only problem is, with my large graphics card sitting in the PCIEx16 slot directly next to the northbridge, and my large heatsink on the CPU, the northbridge is dwarfed between the two with very little room between until you clear the height of the CPU heatsink, which is then limited by the case, it could be side on, but even then... I have Corsair Vengeance RAM, which have gigantic heatsinks on them and run down the side of the northbridge, and the other side has limited space and an exhaust fan :/

I could try with the 80mm. I wouldn't be against buying an aftermarket northbridge heatsink if they are proven to be better, and if they'd actually fit between my GPU and CPU. Or I could get a 40mm fan and see what I can do with that. Would I need metal wire to suspend the fan?

Edit: I've heard of people getting 40mm fans and gluing them onto the northbridge heatsink, would that work? Assuming it fits.