From Newegg to New Computer...

[Urbanwolfie]

The Guts
Putting in the motherboard studs was a pinch due to the stacker's placement guide. I swapped out the I/O shields and removed all the expansion slot covers in preparation of the big install.

Placing the heat sink on the CPU was the biggest pain in the *** so far. I don't have pictures of the process because all hands were full trying to get it all together.

 

[Shadowhawk109]

The Diet Pepsi is *vital*. I usually can't afford all this at once myself, but I managed to fit it into my student budget with a little planning and and lots of ramen.

Good call...thats goin' in the sig (if you don't mind)

Good build, and keep up the good work!

 

[Urbanwolfie]

Ok, this has beena right pain. I hate poor documentation. Most everything is connected now, though I had to remove one of my side panel fans because the Monsoon's heat sink prevented the door from closing while it was in.

I got everything together, so it's time to put it to the harness and see whether everything lights up proper, so to speak.

 

[Behemoth71]

Hi Urban,
I'm also in the process of building my 830, we have really similar specs so far. I'm stuck on a few parts, but one thing you could help me with is expanding on the probs you had with the Monsoon HSF. I believe you HSFs dimensions are 140 x 95 x 160 mm; I've been looking into the Scythe infinity, which is 125 x 116 x 160mm. Do you think I may have similar problems in regards to the fans on my case? Thanks in advance. I look forward to hearing your progress.
-C

 

[Urbanwolfie]

Everything lives so far. All drivers are installed, BIOS updated, and stability testing is started.

Idle at stock settings: 27-29C
Running Super Pi 32M x2 gave me no temp increase whatsoever. I was surprised and skeptical, but verified it in several areas. This bodes well for the overclock.

Moving on to Prime95 and memtest shortly. Pics from the rest of the install in a bit.

Behemoth - You may quite possibly run into the same problem with a sink that high. It was *almost* enough, but the heat pipe ends sticking up from the top kept the door from closing. The only solution I was able to find was removing the fan from that section; it worked out though, because my case temp is holding tight at *just* above ambient with 3 side fans.

 

[squads]

awww....look at the kitty sniffing the boxes

 

[Behemoth71]

Urban,
I was wondering about the psu, Is there an advantage to putting the unit in fan side down? I assume it blows rather than sucks and so with the vented area in the top of this case I felt up was better. Any thoughts?

 

[nvidiaOCmaster]

Urban,
I was wondering about the psu, Is there an advantage to putting the unit in fan side down? I assume it blows rather than sucks and so with the vented area in the top of this case I felt up was better. Any thoughts?

It sucks aire in through the fan and blows it out the back. It will act like a system exhaust if he puts in facing down.

 

[Urbanwolfie]

^--Yeah, that. my airflow setup is as follows:
Intake: 1 fan front, 3 fans side.
Exhaust: 1 fan top, 1 fan + PSU rear

Without the 4th side intake fan over the NB/CPU/MOSFETs I wanted to be sure there was enough air being drawn over by the exhaust fans to keep the temps down.

 

[Behemoth71]

Good to know thanks. How are those TT 120s? I need to find a deal on four fans I guess: Three on the side, and one up top. I have atm a 120 on the psu, and the 2 front and back ones that came with the case. WOW, this thing barely fits in my desk.

 

[Shift]

I would never touch a TEC cooler. I don't think they are mature enough.

 

[Urbanwolfie]

The Monsoon would be better described as "TEC-assisted". The sink has a copper heat plate with two pipes coming off of it that sits between the processor and the peltier's cold side. That alone draws a fair amount of heat away from the processor, so if the peltier were to fail there would be plenty of time to shut down the system (not to mention the alarm that's built in).

So sure, they're still a little iffy, but this one seems to handle its drawbacks nicely.