As you might know by now that I like building my own computer and customizing it as per my requirements rather than buying one of a rack. I am also a proud geek and love to read posts such as how to spot a Fund Me Scam? As this not just helps me to get an insight into the misuse of social media but also gives me an oppurtunity to educate you about it.
As you may recall from my Computer Meltdown (literally) post, this past Wednesday I burnt out not only my computer’s power supply, but its CPU, the CPU fan, and three case fans. The CPU chip was burnt so badly that it scorched the motherboard around it. The CPU chip, with nothing but the heatsink for cooling, reached 186°.
Apparently the CPU fan and the power supply had been failing by degrees for some time. For months now I’ve been having problems with the system crashing or rebooting (with or without a Blue Screen of Death) and after having a call with the IT Support Springfield team, I came to know that the crashes occurred as regularly as Old Faithful during periods of high system activity such as when playing the only video game in which I indulge, Halo, or during system maintenance cycles like defragmentation and backing up to my external FireWire drive. Being much more comfortable with software than with hardware, I had approached the problem from a software angle: I troubleshot the OS, my user profile, video and sound drivers, my maintenance scheduling program, and so on. Nothing solved the crash problem. Now I understand why; it was hardware.
The excessive heat coupled with, and caused by, high power consumption during these strenuous activies caused the system to protest by rebooting.
Now, however, I sit beside a much cooler system with a larger power supply. This goal was reached through much frustration and two trips to Fry’s; at least one more trip is in the near future. I’ll get to that.
I hired Tom to fix the system. He took my system, found the meltdown problems, and believed he had fixed them. When I got the system home late Thursday night, however, I found it still wouldn’t work. On the rare occassion when it would boot into the BIOS (what’s called “posting”), an error was generated stating that the CPU settings were incorrect or invalid. Tom hypothesized that the computer case itself was to blame. When he had demonstrated the functionality of the system prior to returning it to me, he had had the motherboard completely removed from the case. Then, with the mid-tower case sitting on its side, it had posted once more at Tom’s. When I got it home, set the tower vertically as it was intended, and plugged everything in, it wouldn’t post (at least not without the aforementioned error).
Tom had installed a new power supply, new CPU chip, new CPU fan, and three new case fans. For extra safety he set all the case fans to blow out of the case, front and back, as opposed to the usual setup wherein fans suck in from the front and blow out through the back, creating a cooling tunnel. This created a negative pressure zone within the case, the main benefit of which was that it would keep out debris (e.g. cat hair). Everything sounded great! As I mentioned, it wouldn’t post.
So, I spent a little while with the Classifieds (the hardcopy kind ’cause you need a computer to access Monster.com) looking for a job not related to computers. I didn’t qualify for garbage collector position because I hadn’t a degree in Waste Management or Custodial Engineering. I don’t have enough zits to be qualified as a McDonald’s fry cook. I really couldn’t see me selling bongs in the local headshop. And, Sperm Bank Technician just icked me out.
Strawberry Blonde convinced me not to give up on computers all together, and Friday we took a drive to Fry’s Electronics, the electronics superstore, the Toys R’ Us for grown-ups.
Tom had stated that he believed my computer case was at fault. Of this he was absolutely convinced. That it had developed “a lean” that was causing grounding issues with the power flow throughout the system. So, after everything, the case itself was at fault for the whole meltdown. Since I’m a software guy and he a hardware guy, I trusted him.
At Fry’s we bought a new case (see photos). For the geeks: The case is a RaidMax ATX298WSTP front USB 2.0 case with four external 5.25″ bays, two external 3.5″ bays, four internal 3.5″ bays, one AGP slot, and five PCI slots. It comes with a 350w RaidMax power supply, which we dumped in favor of my new EnLight 420w. As you can see from the photos, the large power button (front-bottom) lights up, as does the included blue cold-cathode light I mounted above the photosensitive side fans below the window (side view). The entire case is painted like matte silver, with the front panel and bay covers brushed steele and covered with ¼ inch-thick clear plexiglass that, from the beveled sides, appears to glow blue (without electricity). Hidden in front of the internal 3.5″ harddrive bays is space for four case fans. I’ve installed two diagonally. With the two intake fans hidden in the front, the two side outtake fans, and the power supply’s paired intake and outtake fans, the case has a total of six fans. The ATI Rage Fury Pro Ti 4200 has its own onboard fan, as does the CPU and the BIOS chip. I’m told the Vantec AeroFlow Tip-Magnetic-Driving, 5600 RPM fan atop the CPU will outlive this and my next two systems. It’s a cooled system. Just to be absolutely sure the case is cool, it comes with a digital thermal meter (front, top bay) which displays the internal temperature in user-selectable Fahrenheit or Celsius.
I really like how the case matches the steele shelves that comprise my office.
Back to the tale… The more I thought about it, the more I wondered how the hell a case could cause so much trouble. The CPU error messages fueled my doubt about the case being at fault. So, while waiting for Tom Saturday, Strawberry Blonde and I took another drive down to Fry’s. There we purchased a new motherboard, new CPU chip, and new RAM to fit the motherboard. When Tom looked at the system Saturday after all the stores closed, I wanted to have on hand all the parts we might need to replace; I did not want to be stuck waiting until the next day to get parts, then, after that, waiting again until Tom could once more look at the system.
Saturday evening I carted my old system, exactly as Tom had left it, along with the new case, new motherboard, new CPU, new RAM, and some other little stuff over to Tom’s house. While tearing down the old system he proved his lean theory. When he tried to remove a rail-mounted harddrive (I have a pair of 80GB drives internal), he found that one was stuck. The case has warped slightly, as evidenced by the fact that he had to strain to remove the rail-mounted drive from the bay. Ok. I learned something new.
The new case works perfectly. It boots without error messages. At the height of use (I had Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, HomeSite 5.5, four browser windows, and a few other things running all at once) the system temperature has remained in the mid-ninety degree range. More importantly, I played Halo for about an hour without a single crash (it would usually crash at least twice an hour), then ran all backup routines. The system didn’t even bitch once. Now we must make another trip to Fry’s (twenty minutes each way) to return the excess components. While there we’ll pick up another gigabyte of RAM for me and some new fans for Strawberry Blonde. I’ll be swapping the RaidMax 350w power supply for her aging 300w. Fortunately today is Super Bowl Sunday, so all the football fans will be glued to their couches while we’re at guy heaven. Should be a quick trip.
Wish us luck!
Oh, and please pardon the mess evident in the photos. My office is usually very neat, with all the computer, printer, stereo, etc. wires completely hidden (I am an absolute master with zip-ties). For repair and testing, however, I pulled all the cords out into the open and made a mess of the rest of the area.
Oh, honey, you’re computer isn’t as hot as you anymore!!
i have the same case as you do, but the only problem i have is that my temperature display doesn’t give the temperature.
i would like you to tell me how to install right.
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