Sounds like you'll be back in business soon and that the $25 for help will also be money well spent. The Corsair is a great PSU really second only to Seasonic in my humble opinion but also many other great PSU's out there. In the end the Corsair may fit tight but it will mount and run like a champ. Please take some pictures if you can and post when it's altogether.
Post some photos when its up! Thats going to be a machine!
Unfortunately I still do not have pictures; the "zoom" on the camera keeps glitching so it will only take blurred pictures. We've had it since 2002 so I'm sure its just toast and we won't be able to buy another probably until Christmas so... ugh. I really did want to document this but well, it just wasn't meant to be. I'll get to it soon as I have a functional camera (we don't do "smart" phones).
Otherwise, I installed everything except for the board and HSF and it all went smoothly. It already had BIOS 2201 so we didn't have to change anything else there except for correcting RAM at 1333 to 1600. I am not overclocking until or unless it begins lagging and that shouldn't happen for a good, long while from now. My cable management needs some work but I'm really not worried about it as the case has no visibility to the guts and its only pooled down there between the PSU and HDD age (not even a whole lot and none of it obstructs air flow either).
I haven't really done much on the software side yet. Right now the temperatures are throwing me for a bit of a loop. I understand there are some issues with AMD sensors but... this is very confusing. The NH-D14's are really good, but they cannot be this good: 8C (Package) in both Core Temp and HWMonitor (28C socket). On the other hand, BIOS had it at 33C (27C socket) and at 23.8C ambient but then on the other hand again, AMD's Overdrive had it at 62C (and if that one actually is accurate I'm in trouble because that was on Windows idle). I watched the tech apply only a pea sized blob (the correct amount for this size of CPU; I know the new size is a "rice grain" for the Intel's and yatta yatta) in the direct center of this chip with my NT-H1 so it cannot be the TIM. It can't be ambient either because its been between 21.1-23.8C.
I'm feeling nothing but brisk, cold air being exhausted (hence I dubbed it "Iceberg" lol) so... any ideas on which is the accurate temp? Or rather, which monitoring program works best for AMD?
Edit:
"Starting with AMD OverDrive Ver 4.3.1.0690 instead of displaying CPU temperature, AOD will report Thermal Margin. Thermal Margin indicates how far the current operating temperature is below the maximum operating temperature of the processor". http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/AM...ease_Notes.pdf
But then that surely must mean the chip's sensor isn't functional... because 61C is this one's max safe operating temperature, right? See, extremely confusing. Or are the NH-D14's really just that good?
If this helps any, the GPU is around 30C and we're still at 21.1C ambient.
Last edited by MagusMagnus; 25 Mar 2014 at 00:16.
I managed to get the camera to minimally cooperate for a few pictures...
* Still not quite clear on if I was supposed to connect that one also to the PSU or not... ???
Alright now I admit... the cable management is worse than I first assessed. I *MIGHT* go back and attempt to clean it up but... well, *MAYBE*... God forbid I break it after getting it going and only for aesthetic reasons; that would be terrible indeed.
That extra molex connector is a pass thru which allows for another device to also get power which you don't need so just leave it. Everything looks great !
Ah good to know, thank you. Just one other thing about the fans... how "strong" would you say they should be? I know they probably are not the best being that they were included with the case, but I honestly expected them to do more than they are. I have them set to "high" on all of the control switches and I can definitely feel them by hand but they don't seem as "strong" as they should be to me, or perhaps its just because I'm used to the ancient 80mm's and not the new 120mm's? They don't really specify what the CFM is either, kind of bothers me. They are silent but I'm wondering if that's not just because they are very low CFM or something. I'd rather have good CFM and trade it for more noise (my ceiling fan is louder than everything else so I really don't care about noise). I'm hesitant to put a load on this until I know they're actually good enough. Basically, if they're on the 4-Pin molex to PSU that's as high as they'll ever go right? No magic BIOS tweaking possible?
That's the other thing, to be able to actually see and even play with them in BIOS would I need a special converter for that? My PSU did come with some 4-pin to fan headers but I think that would be a very bad idea... right, 5 120mm on a controller and using one of those for one fan header is bad for the board?
I've also decided I do in fact need an SSD, that is the sole bottleneck in this system. I never would have believed it otherwise but I expected more of a WEI on this drive with this one than 5.9... it would be a 7.8 if it weren't for that. It's not even just the WEI either, I notice it holding it up in actual performance by sight. I'm thinking that's what I'll be getting for birthday and/or Christmas.
Lastly, I'm deciding on whether or not I want the 7-year warranty extension on my GPU... opinions?
If you can feel the fans and not hear them then you're good for now, save for the ssd then as many premium fans as the case will fit later when you have money to blow. I don't speed control fans for me with premium fans that are quiet it's just a waste. Order Noctua's later and run them wide open at 12v. Regarding the 7 year warranty it depends on the cost and is it transferable?
I can get the extra 2 years (5 total) for $15 or the extra 7 years (10 total) for $30. I believe it is transferable but we really don't need to worry about that as I don't plan to sell it and I'll also never be able to afford to spend $500 on one GPU (for the same reason I'll also never be able to afford Intel again as a matter of fact); at best I'll be able to grab a second one of these for SLI and that would be about it and only if/when they drop to $150 in a couple of years.
And as I discovered with the 3DMark testing, this is exactly what it sounds like for me too: My GTX 760 SC coil whine? - YouTube
Is this a problem to indicate it will fail? It isn't constant but it happens often enough and now I am concerned about the actual integrity of this card. I can't afford for it to fail or the have to keep RMAing either. I still have a week to return it so it's now or never to make that decision. It's not about the noise, it's about what that noise really means... so harmful defect, or a harmless something-else?
Two years for $15.00 sounds good but another 15 for two more that's your call. I think if it's gone 5 years it will go seven.
True. I still have time to mull it over... it really does suck that they don't let you ride it out for a year because after just dropping a grand and some change its really not ideal to then have to decide so quickly to spend even more. If I weren't already over-budget this would be a no-brainer but I have to be careful, basically $130 is all I have left for the foreseeable year unless someone has an odd job to toss my way and yeah, I just have to be careful. Of course I want the 10-year but I guess 7-year is better than only 3 years and I'd be a fool not to extend it at all.
Well anyway... is it normal for the case speaker to no longer beep once at POST? I noticed it did that every time for the first couple of days and now it doesn't. Did the speaker die, or is it not supposed to beep once at POST beyond the initial few starts? I'd rather it remain functional just in case. I'll try re-seating it but otherwise, what else could that indicate? Everything else is still running like a dream (other than the GPU squealing on, it appears, excessively high frame rates).
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