1500 dollar PC

[hal]

Well with over 30 years in electronics I gotta throw in my 2 cents.
!. ESD is an unlikely event, but it does happen and is worth avoiding. Dry air, working on carpet are things that help cause static.
2. If your PS is plugged into a 3 prong outlet and your ground spike hasn't been eaten by the lawn mower or whatever then yes an unpainted screw on your case will ground you. Plan B in this case is metal water pipe.
3. The ESD strap can go bad. If you have a ohmmeter or multimeter it should read 1 to 10 megaohm. Do not ever use a low impedance device to ground your self. Ive heard of  a budding genius that have used a wire to ground themselves. Please don't do this.
4. I would normally not worry about ESD when plugging in cards on a computer but for cleaning the thermal goo on CPU I'd advise it

[Miguel]

Hal speaks the truth!  ESD is typically only seen on unmounted chips.  Once you mount a chip to a board the likelyhood of ESD is reduced dramatically, because ESD events rely on charging the very small capacitances of the pins very quickly in order to damage the chip inside the package.  Once the device is mounted, this becomes much more unlikely because the capacitance of the pin is added to that of the board, requiring a LOT more charge for the same thing to happen.  So you don't have to worry too much when dealing with cards like DIMM's, video cards, etc.  It's mainly the processor that is vulnerable.

When I was working at AMD it was quite common to see returned processors that were toasted by ESD events, and I've seen it done frequently on other chips in the lab.  However when viewed from the perspective of total number of returns, ESD damage was pretty low on the list.  The vast majority were heat damage. ;)

[Sky]

None of the handful of home theater guys we have here have any feedback on that sound card? It looks pretty cool. I'm going to sleep on the decision over the weekend, I guess I'll be giving feedback sometime next week :) I just wish I could hold out until they ship their newer card (xpurity), but apparently that might not be until december, and I don't think I could stand xbox gaming until then!

I'm thinking in a few months I'll be building a C2D E6600 (o/c to 3.6GHz) DDR2 800 system. Hopefully I can find a Tuniq Tower T-120 by then. Probably that nVidia card that has two cards on a single slot and an Antec P-180 case. Just my first thoughts on a system.

Kinda topical, since it shouldn't run much more than $1500.

[Lt.Dan]

I once bought an unknown brand soundcard.  It was fine for a couple of years but the company stopped supporting it about the same time alot of games looked for EAD support.  It was supposed to run EAD but it crashed practically everytime.  I was purely using it for gaming so my experience might not be indicative of a higher end no-name audio card manufacturer.

[Trippy]

I'm only saying that it probably doesn't work the way you think it does.  The ones that have your machinery run from battery, totally isolated from input power all the time, are the double-conversion kind.  Those are the best ones, but they cost.  The line-interactive ones have the battery in parallel instead of series, and you run off of the power grid until it goes poof and you are switched to the battery.  So these UPS contain a surge protector as well.  I priced up some double-conversion units a while back... too rich for my blood.  Hard to find, too.

For home use, line-interactive UPSes are usually good enough. Line-interactive means that the UPS will switch to the battery if the voltage drops too low (aka a "brown out") and will clamp the voltage if it gets to high (like a "mini surge"). These sorts of UPSes are typically labeled with "AVR" as in "Automatic Voltage Regulation" as opposed to standby UPSes that only kick in if the power goes out. AVR UPSes aren't like a double-conversion UPS where you are always getting a constant voltage cause there's a threshold before it kicks in the battery or clamps down the voltage (though some allow you to adjust that threshold) and I think all the cheaper AVR UPSes use a square wave voltage output and not a pure sine wave one like the more expensive UPSes use.

Edit: fixed typos

[Strazos]

Bleh, one last question regarding thermal paste application: what do you usually use to spread it into a nice, thin layer? Some people have said stuff like q-tips and such, but I would worry that the cottony bits that would come off would screw with stuff - what happens when that cotton really heats up, stuck between the heatsink and CPU?

[Trippy]

Bleh, one last question regarding thermal paste application: what do you usually use to spread it into a nice, thin layer? Some people have said stuff like q-tips and such, but I would worry that the cottony bits that would come off would screw with stuff - what happens when that cotton really heats up, stuck between the heatsink and CPU?

Do not use a Q-tip -- that would be very bad.

If your tube of thermal paste didn't come with an "applicator" use a thin plastic card with a very smooth edge. A credit card will work but something a little more flexible (but not too flexible) like, say, a plastic library card, will work better. If the applicator is too stiff it tends to "scrap" the paste rather than spread it. In a pinch you can even use an edge from a piece of plastic packaging -- for example the plastic "holder" from an Athlon 64 CPU works (that's what I used for my last CPU install).

The main thing about thermal paste application is to use as little as possible. Put a very small drop at first and take the time to spread it out.

[Strazos]

But how thin is too thin?

[Righ]

One angstrom is too thin.

[Trippy]

But how thin is too thin?

It depends on how smooth and flat the base of the heat sink is -- the smoother and flatter it is, the less thermal paste you will need. Smoothness is easy to check since the smoother it is the more mirror-like the reflection coming off of the base will be. You can search on "lapping" and "heat sink" to learn more about this sort of stuff. Personally I don't lap my heat sinks (I can be fumble fingered at times and would probably make it worse rather than better) and instead spend some extra money to buy a heat sink I know will already come with a very smooth finish such as those made by Zalman.

[Strazos]

One angstrom is too thin.

Heh.

And thanks Trippy. I'm using an older Thermaltake Volcano9-series heatsink+fan, so the heatsink's finish should be fairly good, especially after I clean it up.

When I built the thing 4 years ago, I probably just globbed some on and forced it flat...I'll be able to tell you how bad it was tomarrow.  :-D

[hal]

How thin is to thin? You want some everywhere but not much anywhere. To actually try to do this work try to spread a thin layer everwhere and then rub the heatsink into the processor (you are trying to fill small gaps that you cant see). There is a metal plate for the processor and there may be some other stuff, you do not want paste on the other stuff. Its one of those easy to do but hard to describe kinda things.

[Strazos]

But if I rub the heatsink in, won't that smear the paste, and psosibly leave gaps in the CPU/heatsink interface?

[Trippy]

But if I rub the heatsink in, won't that smear the paste, and psosibly leave gaps in the CPU/heatsink interface?

Any place where the heatsink would normally contact the heat spreader/die on the CPU you do *not* want any thermal paste there. That's because the paste does not conduct heat as well as a pure metal on metal contact. You do want the paste to fill in the "gaps" between the heatsink and the heat spreader/die because the paste is a better conductor of heat than air (assuming you have good quality thermal paste). If both surfaces are very smooth and flat then the gaps will mostly be of the nonvisible kind (i.e. at the microscopic level).

When you attach the heatsink to the CPU the force of the attachment will naturally "squeeze out" the paste so that the metal on the metal contact points should be devoid of paste assuming you didn't use too much to begin with so "rubbing" isn't necessary if you have a thin relatively even layer covering the entire heat spreader/die. You would need to rub it if you just plopped on a drop of paste and then didn't spread it out somehow first.

[Strazos]

Hmm...I don't my CPU has a heat speader or anything...just a flat surface on top (XP 2700+).

So wouldn't I just cover the entire top of the CPU?

[Trippy]

Hmm...I don't my CPU has a heat speader or anything...just a flat surface on top (XP 2700+).

So wouldn't I just cover the entire top of the CPU?

Yes, that's the die.

[Strazos]

But you said Not to cover the die! durka

[Engels]

ok, this is getting a bit too anal. This shit just isn't that complicated.


------------------------------------- <- fan heat sink surface
------------------------------------- <- CPU shiny metallic surface, known as the die

Put a thin thin layer of goop on the CPU die so that you can be sure that there's virtually no purely metal-on-metal contact. As mentioned before, all metal-on-metal contact is not 'true' contact, due to air particles, and hence, bad heat condutivity. Do not put so much on that the heat has trouble traversing the goo to the heat sink. It should be near microscopic.

As long as you follow these basic guidelines you should not have a conductivity problem, even if you do not do it perfectly.

[Strazos]

Sorry, I just really don't wanna fuck up, then have to get a new CPU, reinstall OS, etc etc etc. I've dealt with hardware plenty of times...just never really the CPUs themselves (my buddy delt with it when I built the system originally). That being said...



I honestly don't even remember my CPU looking like that. I just remember a blank surface.

i r not 1337

[Engels]

In that particular picture, yes, that is the die. But not all CPUs don't look like that; some have a much wider die/ heat spreader area, covering the whole CPU surface. Here's an online guide I found from a compound manufacturer. If you scroll down, you will see various CPU types and their various die types.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

Edit: Here's an explanation about why thin is important: http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/5,62.html

[Sky]

BURN!

[UD_Delt]

Didn't see this site mentioned but it's saved me some cash once in a while.

www.salescircular.com basically puts all the recent best buy, circuit city, etc. items together in one place. You just have to make sure you're good with following rebate instructions and documenting EVERYTHING twice before sending in a rebate so the cockmonkeys don't try to screw you over and deny the rebate.

[MrHat]

Just a heads up:

Best Buy is having a back to school coupon sale thingy.  They're giving out coupons that can save up to 30% (if the best buy store is business segmented) on computer accessories.  These work in conjunction with instant rebates.

Example:  Last week BB had a sale on a 500GB external HDD from WD, it was $199.99 after an instant rebate.  Less 30%, you can see the goodness.

[dusematic]

So you actually have to go in to the store to get the coupon?

[Yegolev]

Sorry, I just really don't wanna fuck up, then have to get a new CPU, reinstall OS, etc etc etc.

Can you remind me why you are doing the OS install?  Otherwise you should listen to the advice already given.  The Important Thing is that your heatsink be flush with the die (shiny part of CPU) since that will give the best conduction.  The paste really saves you countless hours of polishing both surfaces to a perfectly-flat mirror finish and attaining perfect alignment.  Also, you don't want to get it on anything other than the die.  I spread with my finger and remove the excess, also with a finger.  I would not advise removing the CPU but I don't know what your case looks like.  If you can just get the HSF out without removing anything else, do that.  In my case, I have to take out the mobo in order to unbolt the HSF, which sucks a lot.  Next HW upgrade, I plan to empty the chassis and take a Dremel to it, making holes in convenient locations such as under the CPU.

As for ESD, I haven't had any detectable issues with it, simply by discharging into the chassis and not being a dumbass.  Being the same voltage as the machine should eliminate undesired transfer of electrons.  If you want to worry about ESD, I'd also be paranoid about curling a CPU pin.  Those things are really soft, so be careful.

[Trippy]

But you said Not to cover the die! durka

No I did not.

[Engels]

But you said Not to cover the die! durka

No I did not.

Uhm, ya sorta did:

Any place where the heatsink would normally contact the heat spreader/die on the CPU you do *not* want any thermal paste there.

Which is sort of impossible advice to follow, since there's no way of telling what parts of the metal are making contact and what parts aren't. Even if somehow they were making contact, there's still a very small gap inbetween metal and metal that should be occupied by a thin film of thermal paste.

[Trippy]

But you said Not to cover the die! durka

No I did not.

Uhm, ya sorta did:

Any place where the heatsink would normally contact the heat spreader/die on the CPU you do *not* want any thermal paste there.

Which is sort of impossible advice to follow, since there's no way of telling what parts of the metal are making contact and what parts aren't. Even if somehow they were making contact, there's still a very small gap inbetween metal and metal that should be occupied by a thin film of thermal paste.

Well sure, if you don't read my entire post you might get confused. I said you do not want any paste where you would normally get metal on metal contact. I did not say you shouldn't apply thermal paste -- that would've contradicted my original answer to his question.

I'll requote everything here again.

Bleh, one last question regarding thermal paste application: what do you usually use to spread it into a nice, thin layer? Some people have said stuff like q-tips and such, but I would worry that the cottony bits that would come off would screw with stuff - what happens when that cotton really heats up, stuck between the heatsink and CPU?

Do not use a Q-tip -- that would be very bad.

If your tube of thermal paste didn't come with an "applicator" use a thin plastic card with a very smooth edge. A credit card will work but something a little more flexible (but not too flexible) like, say, a plastic library card, will work better. If the applicator is too stiff it tends to "scrap" the paste rather than spread it. In a pinch you can even use an edge from a piece of plastic packaging -- for example the plastic "holder" from an Athlon 64 CPU works (that's what I used for my last CPU install).

The main thing about thermal paste application is to use as little as possible. Put a very small drop at first and take the time to spread it out.

But how thin is too thin?

It depends on how smooth and flat the base of the heat sink is -- the smoother and flatter it is, the less thermal paste you will need. Smoothness is easy to check since the smoother it is the more mirror-like the reflection coming off of the base will be. You can search on "lapping" and "heat sink" to learn more about this sort of stuff. Personally I don't lap my heat sinks (I can be fumble fingered at times and would probably make it worse rather than better) and instead spend some extra money to buy a heat sink I know will already come with a very smooth finish such as those made by Zalman.

But if I rub the heatsink in, won't that smear the paste, and psosibly leave gaps in the CPU/heatsink interface?

Any place where the heatsink would normally contact the heat spreader/die on the CPU you do *not* want any thermal paste there. That's because the paste does not conduct heat as well as a pure metal on metal contact. You do want the paste to fill in the "gaps" between the heatsink and the heat spreader/die because the paste is a better conductor of heat than air (assuming you have good quality thermal paste). If both surfaces are very smooth and flat then the gaps will mostly be of the nonvisible kind (i.e. at the microscopic level).

When you attach the heatsink to the CPU the force of the attachment will naturally "squeeze out" the paste so that the metal on the metal contact points should be devoid of paste assuming you didn't use too much to begin with so "rubbing" isn't necessary if you have a thin relatively even layer covering the entire heat spreader/die. You would need to rub it if you just plopped on a drop of paste and then didn't spread it out somehow first.

The purpose of the first paragraph was to emphasize that less paste is better (which I talked about in the first two post). The second paragraph explains how the attachment of the heatsink to the CPU will "push out" the excess paste assuming you don't use too much to begin with leaving as much metal to metal contact as possible.

The problem is is that Strazos keeps asking follow up questions which is just confusing him more. If he just followed my original advice we wouldn't be continually talking about to how to apply thermal paste to a heat spreader/die -- it's really not all that difficult.

Edit: Requoted and edited.
 

[Merusk]

This conversation looks like guys trying to tell a novice how to mud drywall, but only in text.  It's not something you really need to over-analyze or think a lot about.

[Strazos]

Durr, well this did not go very well at all.

Got all the fans installed. Took off the HSF, and cleaned up the mating surfaces. Dropped on a tiny dolop of Arctic Silver, and reattached the HSF.

Apparently incorrectly.

It looked like it was on straight. The clip were engaged. Everything loked good, until I tried to boot up.

First I couldn't POST, then I could, but Windows would not load. After a lot of putzing around with BIOS, I eventually see that the system keeps shutting itself off because the poor CPU was crying out in agony from heat...the heat the HSF/grease was supposed to take care of.

After more screwing around with the HSF that I haven't really liked since the day I got it, I eventually just went got and a new, smaller HSF combo...one that works, and doesn't require 100lbs of force to attach to the board.

On the plus side, my PC no longer sounds akin to a jet engine. A few people here have probably inadvertantly heard my PC over teamspeak. It was loud, but now it's whisper quiet, and holds at about 50-some degrees C.

This shit just reminds me of working on a car...it's a pain in the balls sometimes.

[Engels]

Glad you got it sorted, Strazos. 50 C is a great temp for an Athschlong XP.

[Sky]

This shit just reminds me of working on a car...it's a pain in the balls sometimes.

I totally agree. It's why I don't have a side business. It's why I'm not really much of an enthusiast any more, my idea of a fun pc build is one that works without problems. I used to be into the troubleshooting aspect (it's why I'm pretty good at it), but after working on them professionally for the last six years, I just want shit to work.

On the plus side, my PC no longer sounds akin to a jet engine.

For me, it's not so much the volume as the pitch. I won't use a fan smaller than 8cm. My next pc is going to be all 12cm fans, case and cpu, though I'm probably going to stick with whatever gpu solution comes stock since I don't really want to dick with liquid cooling.

Got in the Auzentech card, it's a mixed bag. Both DD5.1 and DTS work great, though there's some oddity where you have to enable the kareoke feature to keep the DTS "live". Otherwise, short sounds like windows sounds get the first part cut off as DTS activates. Odd, but there's a workaround, so no bigge.

I first loaded up BF2, got some stuttering in the voice-over stuff, and a couple graphic anomalies (slow, lag), but I'm not sure if that's due to the sound, the network connection or server (most likely) or my older cpu/gpu. I won't have a good feel for it until I play on several more servers.

Next up was Oblivion. Motherfuck. Short popping as it loaded a save game didn't bode well, but didn't prepare us (my girl was reading a book right next to a speaker) for the high pitched screeching unleashed once in the game. There's some bad bug in there, and I couldn't figure it out in the half-hour I spent on it. I was steaming a bit by then, and not just from the heat.

GTA:SA worked great, though the music tracks would only play in stereo. The rest of the game was fine. Threw in HoMaMV, worked flawlessly. Installed Freedom Force vs 3rd Reich, worked flawlessly.

Too early to call, but the bugs with Oblivion aren't making me real happy. I'll have to see if I can figure that shit out. I already miss my Soundstorm chip, who'd ever have thought I'd miss onboard sound? But with everything else working pretty good, I can't knock the card too hard, because it does sound good. I'll have to test music and dvd at some point, too. I'll update for the home theater gamers here.

[Bunk]

Dumb and Obvious question, but did you patch Oblivion?

[Yegolev]

Glad you got it sorted, Strazos. 50 C is a great temp for an Athschlong XP.

It is?  I start pulling on my collar at 40C.  But I'm a freak.

[Engels]

For an Athlon XP its great; the whole reason Straz hadda do this is because those chips run too hot to start with. 50 isn't too bad period, tho, even for later chips.