"I need a New PC!" 2011 Thread of reading the OP. Seriously. [Part 2]

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Almost done! How tight do the screws on the retention plate need to be? They have springs on them and the plate feels like it's flexing quite a bit, but there still seems to be a lot of room left for tightening. I had to force it a bit in order to get the screws into the holes as well, but it felt like I was doing the right thing.

The thermal paste didn't go too bad. It was sliding about a bit, but I didn't lift it up at all.

It's also been quite hard to see into the case this whole time because the light in my room is an energy saving piece of shit. I've been wearing a headband with my iphone tucked underneath, and the torch app on.
 
Bungieware said:
Almost done! How tight do the screws on the retention plate need to be? They have springs on them and the plate feels like it's flexing quite a bit, but there still seems to be a lot of room left for tightening. I had to force it a bit in order to get the screws into the holes as well, but it felt like I was doing the right thing.

The thermal paste didn't go too bad. It was sliding about a bit, but I didn't lift it up at all.

It's also been quite hard to see into the case this whole time because the light in my room is an energy saving piece of shit. I've been wearing a headband with my iphone tucked underneath, and the torch app on.
Click to expand...
If the plate is flexing you've gone to far.
Undo it a little, it may seem that you have lots to give but you won't.
Is there no instructions showing the amount of distance that should be between top of screw head and the plate?
 
Bungieware said:
Almost done! How tight do the screws on the retention plate need to be? They have springs on them and the plate feels like it's flexing quite a bit, but there still seems to be a lot of room left for tightening. I had to force it a bit in order to get the screws into the holes as well, but it felt like I was doing the right thing.

The thermal paste didn't go too bad. It was sliding about a bit, but I didn't lift it up at all.

It's also been quite hard to see into the case this whole time because the light in my room is an energy saving piece of shit. I've been wearing a headband with my iphone tucked underneath, and the torch app on.
Click to expand...

The plate should bend only slightly, like 1-2 mm. any more than that and you risk harming your mobo. Generally, the bars should feel snug. If you turn your mobo on it's side and the heatsink doesn't move or shift, you're fine.

edit: I don't mean the plate! I mean the x cross bar! The plate shouldn't be bending.
 
It's really easy to tell when to stop tightening the 212+. Tighten it as much as you can with just your thumb and index finger holding the screwdriver...you should feel at one point the screws become very difficult to tighten. That's when you stop.
 
It felt like it was flexing but I'm not 100% sure. Because I didn't have to remove the motherboard to put the cooler on it's hard to see.

The retention plate is that X-bar... I know that much!
 
TheExodu5 said:
It's really easy to tell when to stop tightening the 212+. Tighten it as much as you can with just your thumb and index finger holding the screwdriver...you should feel at one point the screws become very difficult to tighten. That's when you stop.
Click to expand...
This, try not to use a screwdriver as it is very easy to overtighten.
If you can move the heatsink it needs tightened a little more.
Also remember to tighten them in a crisscross method, don't tighten on corner all the way and then move to the one beside it. Use even pressure on each corner.
 
Well, I meant using a screwdriver. X_X

Using just two fingers to tighten, you shouldn't be able to overtighten. Like I said, it's really obvious when you're at the point where you should stop.

BTW, I forgot to mention, make sure the backplate is in the right orientation. The 4 corner prongs should be against the motherboard, and the large portion of the backplate will actually be floating off the motherboard and not really be touching it.

edit: and yeah, tighten each screw a little bit at a time as to not put all the pressure in one point. Tighten one a few turns, then the next a few turns, and so on.
 
If you can't easily tighten the corner pins, no. Most coolers can rotate on the spot since they're only being kept in place by pressure in the center of the cooler. The only coolers that won't rotate are the ones that are hard mounted to the backplate (like the Mugen 2).

edit: I can't exactly recall the 212+...you sure it can't rotate at all? It's just being held by the pin in the middle. No reasonable amount of pressure is goign to stop it from being rotatable a bit.

edit2: yeah, for sure it can rotate a bit after looking at those pics. Nothing out of the ordinary with that. Even my Thermalright Venomous X with 75lbs of clamping pressure (much higher than the 212+ which I believe is closer to 45lbs) rotates easily.
 
Using everything everyone has said here and a little common sense, seeing as I can still tighten it with a screwdriver, but not with my fingers, I should probably stop there. I can still rotate on the stop, but as Exodu5 said there's nothing other than the pressure from the screws to stop it from doing that. It can't move in any other direction, so it would seem to be fine.
 
Citizen K said:
Is an intel core i3 2100 good for a budget build (none or very little basic gaming, general usage, browsing, office)?

Or is there a better alternative (amd)? Looking for the fastest cpu I can get for sub £100.
Click to expand...

I have an i3-2100 and a 6850 and it's probably the best super budget build on the market.

I've played all these games maxed out on 1680x1050:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 45 fps avg
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - 60 fps avg
Crysis - 40 fps avg
The Witcher 2 (ubersampling, SSAO, and various depth of field effects turned off) - 60 fps avg
Battlefield 3 (mostly high, some ultra) - 45 fps avg on Conquest with 64 players

Sure, it's only a dual core, but it handles the most demanding quad core games like nothing.
 
Does anyone have any tips for connecting Molex connectors together? Yesterday I was having crazy amounts of trouble connecting the PSU to one of the fan molex connectors, i think i dislodged some of the male connectors from the fan's molex connector...
 
whatever you know what i mean i dont see what you're trying to do this is the internet and if you're angry at life maybe you should listen to korn
 
I'm putting together a budget build for a family member.

I need some opinons on this build:

Intel Core i3 2100 3.1GHz
Asus P8H67-V R3 H67 Socket 1155 ATX Motherboard
Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory
Coolermaster Elite 330 Case
Coolermaster eXtreme Power 500W PSU

Already have dvd/cd drive, hard drive and OS. Its not going to be used for gaming so no discrete graphics card needed.

Total: £245.01
Any thoughts on this?
 
Citizen K said:
I'm putting together a budget build for a family member.

I need some opinons on this build:

Intel Core i3 2100 3.1GHz
Asus P8H67-V R3 H67 Socket 1155 ATX Motherboard
Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory
Coolermaster Elite 330 Case
Coolermaster eXtreme Power 500W PSU

Already have dvd/cd drive, hard drive and OS. Its not going to be used for gaming so no discrete graphics card needed.

Total: £245.01
Any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

Try to find a cheap psu + case combo?
 
Finally done! The part that took me the longest was the clips, because I spent a half hour trying to put the last one on the wrong way round. I'm not even joking.

Thank you all for your help, Exodu5, Marco1, Gvaz, Scogoth, and anyone I may have missed. I wouldn't have been able to do it without you. Time to test it out and see how I've done.

Well according to Core Temp it's lowered the idle temperature to the high 20's. It was in the mid 40's before with the stock cooler. I did good?
 
Bungieware said:
Well according to Core Temp it's lowered the idle temperature to the high 20's. It was in the mid 40's before with the stock cooler. I did good?
Click to expand...
Sounds fine, but you should let your CPU run for a while to allow the thermal paste to get through its curing time and you can get a more accurate idea of your temps. Do a couple of CPU stress tests to see how the HSF handles full load as well.
 
Bungieware said:
Finally done! The part that took me the longest was the clips, because I spent a half hour trying to put the last one on the wrong way round. I'm not even joking.

Thank you all for your help, Exodu5, Marco1, Gvaz, Scogoth, and anyone I may have missed. I wouldn't have been able to do it without you. Time to test it out and see how I've done.

Well according to Core Temp it's lowered the idle temperature to the high 20's. It was in the mid 40's before with the stock cooler. I did good?
Click to expand...
You did good, perfect.
Now enjoy.
 
Using Windows 7 backup:

I backed up an entire internal drive to an external. Now, if I delete a file off the internal, will it also be deleted off the external next time I run the backup?
 
Citizen K said:
I'm putting together a budget build for a family member.

I need some opinons on this build:

Intel Core i3 2100 3.1GHz
Asus P8H67-V R3 H67 Socket 1155 ATX Motherboard
Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory
Coolermaster Elite 330 Case
Coolermaster eXtreme Power 500W PSU

Already have dvd/cd drive, hard drive and OS. Its not going to be used for gaming so no discrete graphics card needed.

Total: £245.01
Any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
It's fine. PSU is decent enough for the low amount of power it will be using.

If you have time to spare wait 2 weeks for AMD's new CPU launch. Might offer some good competition and have better onboard graphics.
 
With all this talk about tightening down the CM 212+, I think might have overtightened mine when I did my build a few weeks ago. I think I'll open up my case and ease the mounting screw back a bit.
 
Hey guys, I've got my friends PC for the weekend and he basically wants me to try and sort it out. Long story short, it starts up really slowly and from using it for a few hours, I can already tell there's something seriously wrong here.

It's 3 months old and there doesn't appear to be anything dodgy software-wise going on... I'm a little stuck tbh. Also, whenever my mate has tried overclocking this thing it insta-bluescreens :/

Windows 7 professional
i7 2600k
1x ATI 6950 at stock clocks
8GB RAM
Corsair H50 watercooler
ASUS P8P67 EVO
850W PSU
1TB HDD

Any ideas? I'm tempted to just re-install Windows...
 
Stalfos said:
With all this talk about tightening down the CM 212+, I think might have overtightened mine when I did my build a few weeks ago. I think I'll open up my case and ease the mounting screw back a bit.
Click to expand...
Should depend on the individual cooler, but I'm not sure you can tighten it too much, unless you're damaging the motherboard. You want it really tight, because the metal on metal contact (CPU heatspreader to heatsink) is the best you can get for temps. That's why some people don't even use thermal paste after extreme lapping of the cooler+CPU.

Jibbed said:
Hey guys, I've got my friends PC for the weekend and he basically wants me to try and sort it out. Long story short, it starts up really slowly and from using it for a few hours, I can already tell there's something seriously wrong here.

It's 3 months old and there doesn't appear to be anything dodgy software-wise going on... I'm a little stuck tbh. Also, whenever my mate has tried overclocking this thing it insta-bluescreens :/

Windows 7 professional
i7 2600k
1x ATI 6950 at stock clocks
8GB RAM
Corsair H50 watercooler
ASUS P8P67 EVO
850W PSU
1TB HDD

Any ideas? I'm tempted to just re-install Windows...
Click to expand...
Slow start ups + ??? (runs slow?) isn't very specific. Does he have a lot of a ton of stuff in his startup/services running that doesn't need to be?

If it's not a software issue it might be the HDD, but it seems more likely that it's Windows. Could be a rootkit, that most likely wouldn't show up during virus scans, but I'm not sure if those will slow down the system like that.
 
Stalfos said:
With all this talk about tightening down the CM 212+, I think might have overtightened mine when I did my build a few weeks ago. I think I'll open up my case and ease the mounting screw back a bit.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about it. It would be tough to really overtighten the CM 212+. I think you'd strip the screws first.

Bungieware said:
Finally done! The part that took me the longest was the clips, because I spent a half hour trying to put the last one on the wrong way round. I'm not even joking.

Thank you all for your help, Exodu5, Marco1, Gvaz, Scogoth, and anyone I may have missed. I wouldn't have been able to do it without you. Time to test it out and see how I've done.

Well according to Core Temp it's lowered the idle temperature to the high 20's. It was in the mid 40's before with the stock cooler. I did good?
Click to expand...

You did good! I'd like to see the load temps, but if your idle temps are sub 30, I'm pretty positive you did a good job.

XiaNaphryz said:
Sounds fine, but you should let your CPU run for a while to allow the thermal paste to get through its curing time and you can get a more accurate idea of your temps. Do a couple of CPU stress tests to see how the HSF handles full load as well.
Click to expand...

Depends on the paste. I know AS5 would take a few days of load testing before it cured properly. MX-4 on the other hand has zero curing time. I'm not too sure about the paste that comes with the 212+, though.
 
chaosblade said:
Should depend on the individual cooler, but I'm not sure you can tighten it too much, unless you're damaging the motherboard. You want it really tight, because the metal on metal contact (CPU heatspreader to heatsink) is the best you can get for temps. That's why some people don't even use thermal paste after extreme lapping of the cooler+CPU.


Slow start ups + ??? (runs slow?) isn't very specific. Does he have a lot of a ton of stuff in his startup/services running that doesn't need to be?

If it's not a software issue it might be the HDD, but it seems more likely that it's Windows. Could be a rootkit, that most likely wouldn't show up during virus scans, but I'm not sure if those will slow down the system like that.
Click to expand...

Sorry :P it seems fine when playing games, but with other programs and simple desktop stuff it seems slower that it should be. Start-up is the main issue though, it takes a good minute before the desktop appears, and then a few more minutes before any of the programs can be used without a crash.

The overclocking instability is concerning aswell.
 
TheExodu5 said:
You did good! I'd like to see the load temps, but if your idle temps are sub 30, I'm pretty positive you did a good job.
Click to expand...

I don't know much about stress testing and prime95 and all that. I was just playing BF3 Beta, which with the stock cooler pushed my old CPU into the 80's, and it was hovering around 50 degrees. That seems a lot better!
 
chaosblade said:
Should depend on the individual cooler, but I'm not sure you can tighten it too much, unless you're damaging the motherboard. You want it really tight, because the metal on metal contact (CPU heatspreader to heatsink) is the best you can get for temps. That's why some people don't even use thermal paste after extreme lapping of the cooler+CPU.
Click to expand...
Ok cool, the above talk was getting me worried since I believe that my retention plate having some flex on it when I tightened it.
 
Bungieware said:
I don't know much about stress testing and prime95 and all that. I was just playing BF3 Beta, which with the stock cooler pushed my old CPU into the 80's, and it was hovering around 50 degrees. That seems a lot better!
Click to expand...

That's great, then!
 
The 212+ is designed to be screw in until you can turn the screws anymore. You don't have to worry about how much you need to turn the screws in.
 
Bungieware said:
I don't know much about stress testing and prime95 and all that. I was just playing BF3 Beta, which with the stock cooler pushed my old CPU into the 80's, and it was hovering around 50 degrees. That seems a lot better!
Click to expand...
That's great Bungie, you did good!!!!
Those temps are what you should be getting.
 
Does anyone here have any suggestions on how to fix 3D Mark 1? I 've tried everything from reinstalling it, repairing DX11, reinstalling .NET Framework 4, and Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable, and I tried running as admin all to no avail. The program just won't open up and start.
 
Could anyone tell me gaps between 550 ti, 560 and 560 ti?

Also where the hell do you guys find a 460 at 130$? Canada only seems to have it around 150-170$
 
Deadly said:
Could anyone tell me gaps between 550 ti, 560 and 560 ti?

Also where the hell do you guys find a 460 at 130$? Canada only seems to have it around 150-170$
Click to expand...

560 Ti is the best value (and most powerful of the 3) and the only of the 3 I'd recommend. The 560 is a heavily overclocked 460 thus not worth the price premium and the 550 Ti is the weakest of the three, the performance equivalent of an AMD 5770/6770.
 
So I'm going to do a mild OC to my i5 750 from 2.67Ghz to 3.2 (don't plan on changing voltages and such), should I completely disable turbo boost (or whatever it's called) in the BIOS?
 
Hazaro said:
It's fine. PSU is decent enough for the low amount of power it will be using.

If you have time to spare wait 2 weeks for AMD's new CPU launch. Might offer some good competition and have better onboard graphics.
Click to expand...

Which launch is that? Bulldozer? Any clues if the new amd's will be faster for general pc usage (i guess the graphics may be faster but that isnt really needed)?


Also anyone know if this laptop spec is good for the price? Acer a decent brand?

acer 5750
 
I finally built my first pc but I can't get it to stay on. I turned on the power supply and pressed the power button on the case but the pc shut off after a second. The power button is stuck in too. I'm not sure what I did wrong.
 
Le-mo said:
PC-Gaf, should I get another Radeon 6950 to crossfire or a SSD? Which one will give me a greater performance boost.
Click to expand...

In games? The 6950. SSD will help with load times though. So you want a few seconds better load time, or more frames per second?

ombz said:
I finally built my first pc but I can't get it to stay on. I turned on the power supply and pressed the power button on the case but the pc shut off after a second. The power button is stuck in too. I'm not sure what I did wrong.
Click to expand...

Try and unstick the power button. Outside of that, if you have multiple sticks of ram, take all but one out. See if it still crashes. If so, switch that one out with another until you've eliminated that possibility. Post back how it goes.
 
Citizen K said:
Which launch is that? Bulldozer? Any clues if the new amd's will be faster for general pc usage (i guess the graphics may be faster but that isnt really needed)?


Also anyone know if this laptop spec is good for the price? Acer a decent brand?

acer 5750
Click to expand...
Cheap laptops, just like any other cheap laptop brand. I liked the screen on mine, but I'm not super picky.

The point why I mention the Bulldozer launch is because of the lower end CPUs that have video on them. You can get a fusion now though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103955
 
I got half my parts delivered from Newegg to me today, PSU, CPU, Case, SSD, Optical Drive. It came from Mississauga (live in Ontario). Unfortunately, the other half are coming from New Jersey. Looks like I'll have to wait until next week to start my build.

Fortunate you guys got in a discussion about Hyper 212 install. I'll be attempting that too for the first time soon. Good insights. It's probably the part I'm most worried about.
 
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