stumpinator3
Programmer
A couple of days ago I asked a question here about a problem I was having with a machine I was building. (I've reposted the question below, in case anyone wants to check the parts.) People suggested that I strip it to the bare minimum, and see if the problem was still there. It is, even with a different power supply, and I'm going to try a new motherboard.
But I'm really puzzled about the heat and CPU fan speed issues. The first thing I took out was the three SCSI drives, in the cage behind the fans in the lower front of the case. That should have cooled things down at least a little, and made for better air flow, right? Well, the motherboard and CPU temps didn't go up (they were around 34 C and 45.5 C, in a 79 F room), but the CPU fan speed shot up from around 3200 rpm to over 5000. (What an annoying sound!) Not what I expected. Then, just for the hell of it, I put the cage (with drives) back, leaving them unconnected. The fan speed went back down. What gives??
More generally, it's pretty clear that I'm going to have to take some parts out, for heat reasons. (Among other reasons, the room gets pretty warm from other equipment.) It's gotta be RAM or drives. I remember, when I was first gathering parts, asking the folks at Crucial and Kingston how much heat the RAM would give off. They were nice, but didn't help much. My guess is that I'd probably save more heat by getting rid of RAM. (On the other hand, there didn't seem to be much cooling when I took it from 2 gig down to 512 MB.) Does that sound reasonable?
- Dave
*****
Three years ago I put together a machine, as carefully as I could.
(Everything was double-checked, static precautions observed, all
connections secure.) I didn't get to the point of installing an OS,
because the computer had intermittent problems. Right at that time my
girlfriend ripped me off of all my money and left, so I got really
depressed and just kept using my old machine.
Now I want to fix the problem, but I've forgotten almost everything I
knew about putting computers together. Plus it's been a long time,
in computer years, and technology marches on. But I'm hoping someone
could give some advice.
The machine shows no problems at all if started cold, with 15 minute
breaks in-between. (I tried 25 times yesterday, to be sure of this.)
When warm - and by that I don't mean overheated, just not turned
off for long -- I do get intermittent problems. When I start up using
the power button, the monitor gets no signal maybe 1 time in 4. (This
almost never happens when I use the reset button.) The power button
doesn't always work the same way. Also, the machine sometimes goes
to Setup and complains that it's now in safe mode because the last
time it was booted the speed settings for the processor were
inappropriate. (I never altered any speed settings.) I also seem to
remember it complaining three years ago that I had the wrong processor,
but that was a long time ago, I don't remember the exact message, and
I can't duplicate the problem.
Any ideas about what I should do? Replacing the motherboard seems like
an obvious step to me, but there might be a better idea than that. And
if I do replace it, does anyone have any suggestions about what boards
to get? As I said, it's been a long time.
Below is a list of the parts. I don't know what I had in mind,
putting so much in there - I can't remember why I thought I needed
so many drives (and both types!), or what scheme I had for partitioning
them. I'll have to take something out, as the temps get too hot when
the ambient temperature gets up there. Thanks for any help.
- Dave
Asus P4G8X Deluxe motherboard
Pentium 4 3.06 Ghz
2 meg pc2700 DDR ram from Crucial
PC Power and Cooling Turbo-cool 510 ATX power supply
Matrox Parhelia video card
Adaptec SCSI card 29320LP
Seagate Cheetah 36.7GB SCSI drive ST336753LW
2 Seagate Cheetah 18.4GB SCSI drives ST318453LW
Asus DRW-0402P DVD-R / RW Drive
Generic diskette drive
Viewsonic 19" VX900 LCD display (plus two old Trinitrons, if I ever
get this thing working)
Western Digital WD2000JBRT drive
Big case with lotsa fans
But I'm really puzzled about the heat and CPU fan speed issues. The first thing I took out was the three SCSI drives, in the cage behind the fans in the lower front of the case. That should have cooled things down at least a little, and made for better air flow, right? Well, the motherboard and CPU temps didn't go up (they were around 34 C and 45.5 C, in a 79 F room), but the CPU fan speed shot up from around 3200 rpm to over 5000. (What an annoying sound!) Not what I expected. Then, just for the hell of it, I put the cage (with drives) back, leaving them unconnected. The fan speed went back down. What gives??
More generally, it's pretty clear that I'm going to have to take some parts out, for heat reasons. (Among other reasons, the room gets pretty warm from other equipment.) It's gotta be RAM or drives. I remember, when I was first gathering parts, asking the folks at Crucial and Kingston how much heat the RAM would give off. They were nice, but didn't help much. My guess is that I'd probably save more heat by getting rid of RAM. (On the other hand, there didn't seem to be much cooling when I took it from 2 gig down to 512 MB.) Does that sound reasonable?
- Dave
*****
Three years ago I put together a machine, as carefully as I could.
(Everything was double-checked, static precautions observed, all
connections secure.) I didn't get to the point of installing an OS,
because the computer had intermittent problems. Right at that time my
girlfriend ripped me off of all my money and left, so I got really
depressed and just kept using my old machine.
Now I want to fix the problem, but I've forgotten almost everything I
knew about putting computers together. Plus it's been a long time,
in computer years, and technology marches on. But I'm hoping someone
could give some advice.
The machine shows no problems at all if started cold, with 15 minute
breaks in-between. (I tried 25 times yesterday, to be sure of this.)
When warm - and by that I don't mean overheated, just not turned
off for long -- I do get intermittent problems. When I start up using
the power button, the monitor gets no signal maybe 1 time in 4. (This
almost never happens when I use the reset button.) The power button
doesn't always work the same way. Also, the machine sometimes goes
to Setup and complains that it's now in safe mode because the last
time it was booted the speed settings for the processor were
inappropriate. (I never altered any speed settings.) I also seem to
remember it complaining three years ago that I had the wrong processor,
but that was a long time ago, I don't remember the exact message, and
I can't duplicate the problem.
Any ideas about what I should do? Replacing the motherboard seems like
an obvious step to me, but there might be a better idea than that. And
if I do replace it, does anyone have any suggestions about what boards
to get? As I said, it's been a long time.
Below is a list of the parts. I don't know what I had in mind,
putting so much in there - I can't remember why I thought I needed
so many drives (and both types!), or what scheme I had for partitioning
them. I'll have to take something out, as the temps get too hot when
the ambient temperature gets up there. Thanks for any help.
- Dave
Asus P4G8X Deluxe motherboard
Pentium 4 3.06 Ghz
2 meg pc2700 DDR ram from Crucial
PC Power and Cooling Turbo-cool 510 ATX power supply
Matrox Parhelia video card
Adaptec SCSI card 29320LP
Seagate Cheetah 36.7GB SCSI drive ST336753LW
2 Seagate Cheetah 18.4GB SCSI drives ST318453LW
Asus DRW-0402P DVD-R / RW Drive
Generic diskette drive
Viewsonic 19" VX900 LCD display (plus two old Trinitrons, if I ever
get this thing working)
Western Digital WD2000JBRT drive
Big case with lotsa fans
