Serious help needed, will pay well for a few hours

jasonp36

New member
Hi guys, you will have to excuse the extremely abrupt and short post here but am at work and shouldn't be on here.

Anyone able want to make a few hundred quid helping me customise me brand new pc with extra liquid cooling systems? I live near Macclesfield, cheshire a few miles out of Manchester.

Quick run down.

Motherboard: Asus striker 2 780i chipset

Case: Thermaltake kandalf 400lcs with liquid colling system

CPU: Intel Quad core extreme 6850

Ram: 8gb 800 Geil black dragon

Op system: Windows Vista 64-bit

Hard drives: 2 x Raptor 10,000 rpm 150gb

Graphics cards: 2 x 8800gtx 768mb running in SLI

Ok, bought this about 4 weeks ago and arrived only a few days ago. Basically I am a graphic designer and know hardware basics and a bit more, but the computer has frozen 3 times since using it and its now going back to be looked at.I think it got too hot and needed more cooling around the graphics cards which currently are not covered by the liquid cooling system. As I have waited 4-5 weeks for this already I just want it sorting and would like someone who is serious about this stuff to come give me a hand adding some extra cooling and generally give me some much needed advise too for when it comes back from the company I bought it from.

I will pay a decent rate for only a few hours work. I will also buy required components. Anyone interested or willing to help me out? I will owe you big time and am desperate for some sound advise as I am already lagging on overdue work and don't have the time to look into this myself.

Thanks,

Jay
 
We can probably help you remotely if you/we give the right information/ask right questions...

The pc has been sent off? Where did you buy it? Is it under warranty?

Edit: the gpu's should run fine on stock coolers. water cooling is not a prerequisite to computing, its an added luxury for OC'in etc. THings should work.

Can you elaborate? Can you boot into vista? if not where does it go wrong etc...
 
Thanks for your kind and quick reply. Thw hole thing is under a full warranty and is being collected tomorrow to. However, I would like to add more things to it to make it cooler and more stable when it comes back, although it should obviously already be both to some degree anyway.

I just have not got the time to learn what I need to at the moment to do it myself. Really would like someone who is well into pc modding to come and help out if possible. Just want to make sure I don't do anything seriously wrong.

Thanks again though and all the best,

Jay
 
It shouldn't be both to some degree it should be both entirely. If you're not overclocking you should not be having trouble with stability and if you're overheating it may be more to do with your case airflow.

Could you check the temperatures on your Mobo/CPU/GPUs idle/load so we can isolate the problem?
 
Yes, I totally agree of course. I just stated that totally wrong and thats why the machine is being taken back tomorrow. I am not over clocking it at all either, just think that the double 8800gtx cards are adding too much heat as yesterday before it froze up I felt the monitor DVI connection and it was roasting,extremely hot.

The only temp I can remember (as at work) which showed as alarming using the Asus probe2 software to monitor it was the motherboard at 45degrees.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Don't suppose I can interest you to come help out then?

Cheers,

Jay
 
Not from Cardiff, sorry mate.

45 is quite warm but not so hot it should be causing trouble. The GTXs could be part of the problem as they do put out a bit of heat and two together is even worse. A good solution to this problem is a fan to blow air directly onto the GPUs, if you don't fancy fabricating this yourself you can buy the door for the Kandalf with a built in 25cm fan from specialtech.

Fan Speed: 600RPM ±10%

Airflow: 67.69CFM

Noise: 15 dBA

As the fan is so large it moves slowly and produces very little noise whilst moving a decent amount of air (housemate is running one right now so I can confirm this).

Click here
 
name='jasonp36' said:
before it froze up I felt the monitor DVI connection and it was roasting,extremely hot.
never heard of that before,uless its to do with the fact that theres more than one card and they exit air out the back right on top of the dvi connection

name='marcus000' said:
Might be able to help... i'm about 30-40 mins from Manchester! :)

go help the poor guy out marcus,your only up the road:D
 
Sorry for the late replies guys. I have had a heavy evening and only just finished re-packaging my computer to go back to the supplier for further testing ;(

I really appreciate all the help and comments too. I work as a full-time graphic/flash designer and after many months of saving dished out a small fortune for this kit but don't know a great deal about tweaking the performance settings. I mean how fast should all my fans be going, how safe is it to play about with them. This sort of thing. Suppose its almost like buying a sportcar and not being able to change a wheel but I knew what hardware I needed.Just need some help fine tuning it.

The unit is going back for testing tomorrow and they have recommended I remove the liquid cooler in favour of more fans. I thought that was strange but they said for best reliablility you would be better ding so?

Anyways, anyone who helps will be looked after and like I said already. I will pay a fair and reasonable rate and travel costs (within reason ;) )

Thanks again,

Jay
 
Messing about with fan speeds. Worst case scenario, you will fry your computer. Most likely that you won't. Especially if you keep an eye on temps or have a temperature alarm.

I'm thinking they will find something wrong when they take it back.

After setting up and leak testing a water loop, there isn't much maintenance. You change the fluid every 6 months or so and dust your radiator if it gets clogged.

I'm sure more experienced people than me will point out some more stuff and other interesting points, but i you want to learn how to maintain your hardware - which is probably a good thing to do - then this is a great place for it.

How long do they say until you get your comp back?
 
Hi and thanks for the reply. I ahve not changed any settings yet, so any problem must be from it not being configured correctly in the first place or it over-heating I suppose.

I waited around 5 weeks for the computer, ran it one night for about 4 hours and had all the issues. Just kept freezing up so nothing worked and had to turn it off.

I have been promised it will be looked at ASAP but have not been given a return date yet until they figure out what needs doing and what the issues are, which I suppose if fair enough. Just want this thing as fast and reliable as I can possibly afford.

I will certainly be on here more often now, thats for sure. I learn fast but didn't really want to experiment with my machine as I spent around £2500 on it so got worried about playing about with anything really.

Thanks,

Jay
 
Man, i would be so mad if my shiny new computer did that, but i guess that wouldn't be too helpful.

I think it's usually pretty difficult to blow your computer up by tweaking settings. I'm sure it's been done though. The guys on here really know there stuff and are usually more than happy to give you a step by step guide if you ask nicely.

Read the stickies, they have a lot of really good info on them.
 
Yeah, I have had the patience of a saint witht his one just because I woudl rather them take ages and get it right than rush it and mess it up. Also, as I am using Vista 64-bit I have to give them a little lee-way as it still all relatively new I suppose.

Yeah, I like it on here so far. Seems a great and informative place to be and Marcus has some serious stuff going on. Man, it looks like he can build computers.

L8rz m8,

Jay
 
I was just about to hop on a train ......lol. Bit of bad luck so far with this system.... and I don't know how stable Vista 64 is. There might also be a RAM problem; funnily enough I have 8GB of Geil Dragon on the way from Specialtech. I have read numerous post whereby 8GB is unstable on commercial desktop motherboards. Please update us when your PC is returned from the manufacturer.
 
If your system is overheating removing the watercooling doesn't seem logical as that doesn't restrict the number of fans you can have or use in a Kandalf.

Do you mind if I ask who you sent it back to?
 
mmm. i wonder if whoever built it remembered to take the little plastic sheet off the base of the water block,that would cause some serious temp problems if they didnt(that is the voice of experience speaking,i forgot to do it with mine at first)
 
The water cooling is on the CPU only isn't it?

If they don't have decent cooling on the two 8800gtx's then i guess they will get a tad warm.
 
Cool your Northbridge….use a spotfan …the biggest you can get your hands on …that board has inadequate cooling on the chipset…

I watercooled mine and the whole thing instantly became stable….

 
Hi guys and once again sorry for the late reply but can't ge on here at work really. Ok, will try and and answer all questions.

Purchased the computer from www.computerplanet.co.uk and it took about 5 weeks which I suppose many people may have really been annoyed about.Even though I desperately wanted my machine I wanted to also be as fair as possible to those involved in building and testing it as realistically I wanted the latest technology, maximum ram and 64-bit operating sytem too. So I had to consider that getting all this relatively new stuff too all work perfectly might take some doing and I would rather them take longer and get it right than rush and get it wrong. U all laughing at me now I bet as its not working anyway after all that ;)

If I had ordered any other product I would have never allowed a waiting time of anywhere near 5 weeks for such an expensive purchase but during this time the motherboard had to be changed from the original Asus striker Maximus which had the 680i chipset I think, to the Asus P5n-t deluxe which I said I wouldn't accept as many reviews slated it, to the Asus striker 2. This was due to previous boards overheating,compatibility problem and the need to have a 780i chipset to support my dual 8800 768mb grahics cards, something like that. I also had to upgrade my power from 800w to 1000w too. Obviously this all took time and the main thing to me was that from my point of view at least, it was apparantly being well tested as these things were being discovered before it had been delivered to me.

I have to say with all fairness though - So far computer planet have replied quickly to almost all emails both before and after sales, offered fairly sound advise (at least up until now) and acted quickly to collect and re-evaluate my pc too. After reporting the problem they got it collected next day. Can you imagine this happening with other major suppliers? There hardware prices also seem very cheap to me too, so they certainly don't seem to overcharge for everything either.

However, I think they want me to move away from the water coolers just because they don't think I will be able to use it correctly, meaning more collections and time spent fixing my machine though. If that is the case I would be annoyed as I have made it clear I want the best machine for my money and will learn what I need to in order to get this too. Even though I don't obviously understand all that much about the hardware. I now enough that removing the liquid cooling seems a daft option with the amount of hardware I've got running in my machine. On another good note for them though. I offered more money to add more coolers and upgrades if they thought that would help and they said it might not be required and really seemed reluctant to take any more from me, which I thought was good as most companies would jump at the chance to get more cash from the customer. However, this might just be the fact that they can't get my existing set up working and don't want to add any more hardware to it to complicate things etc. Suppose I will just have to see what happens now. They have got it and have begun testing it too. Fingers crossed!

Sorry this reply was so long guys and thanks again for all your time too.

L8rz,

Jay
 
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