New PC spec check and advice

[MarcLister]

KK. So how do I know when I've changed the voltage? I assume that by reducing the fan speed to 1000 or whatever automatically changes the voltage down from 12v to 5v?

Sorry for the persistent questions, not 100% sure about all this and want to be sure that I know what I'm doing or more precisely what I will be doing.

[MarcLister]

Any point in going for 5-5-5-18 RAM or will I be OK/better off with 4-4-4-12 etc?

[Pob255]

Any point in going for 5-5-5-18 RAM or will I be OK/better off with 4-4-4-12 etc?

The lower the timeings the better but all told there's not a great deal of differnce.
If 's only a quid or two I'd go with the lower timeings but if it's £10 or so I'd go for the higher timeings.
Depends on your budget

On fans, here are some basic rules of thumb
- Don't trust the numbers, they make a good rough guide but don't fully trust them, there's no single standard for fans.
- 1000 rpm or lower are near enough slient but don't move much air
- 1200-1600 rpm are low sound and move a good amount of air
- 1800 rpm or higher are loud but move a lot of air.
- All fans run at 12v the rpm of differnt models are done within the fan by a resistor or within the motor.
- A fan controller works by reduceing the voltage which reduces the fan speed. slow speeds ruduces noise and air flow.

I'll expand on some of this as they are rough rules of thumb and some of the tricks done to skew the numbers.
Some fans have more blades than others, makers can use this to claim higher rpm.
LED fans (ok you said you don't like them but I'll mention this anyway) the lower the voltage the less they "glow", so slowing down an LED fan with a fan controller also reduces the brightness of the LEDs
Generally I'd say advoid anything under £5 as low cost is achieved through use of lower quality plastics (thiner + less dense = more flex) lower tolerances especially on fan blade ballence (more unballenced = more vibration) and cheaper bearings. (again this is generally)

The Scythe S-FLEX fans are expensive at £12 each, but are very solid and heavy and very high quality.

A few people rate the Noctua fans for low noise + good air flow, while I've not used one myself, the sharp blade pitch shows they are designed for low speed higher air flow.
I'm willing to bet that they move more air than other fans at the same speed/sound level, but will not move more air than faster spinning fans.

Yate Loon's these fans break the rules as they are basic low cost fans that are not as bad as most low cost fans and a a good quality.
They where plagued with a lot of cheap copies eairly on. but the specialtech ones look kosha

Have a read through the spcr fan round ups they are a fairly good guide
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article739-page6.html
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article695-page6.html

[MarcLister]

Thanks Pob. Lovely post.

[MarcLister]

Just put the new PC together today. Used a Q9650, Asus P5Q-E, 4Gb OCZ DDR RAM, 4870 1GB etc.

Plugged DVI cable into monitor and graphics card. Turned PC on, nothing. Checked I was on DVI mode then I got a message saying "No Input detected". This was using a DVI cable I bought as I was told the monitor didn't have one with it. It did, albeit a DVI at one end and HDMI at the other. The 4870 came with a HDMI/DVI adapter so I used the monitor supplied cable and still nothing, so not the cables. I tried the new monitor on my old PC and I got an image on the screen that I expected. So the monitor works.

I then tried using my current GPU (x1800XT) in the new PC. Still nothing. So perhaps the mobo? So to be sure I tried the 4870 in my old PC. Nothing. More likely to be the GPU now instead of the mobo? Then I decided to resurrect my old PC so I could go online and find some help. Uh oh! Now this won't boot. My old monitor saying no signal coming from PC which surely implies static discharge as it was working before I put it in new PC but not after. However the new PC had the PSU in and plugged into the mains.

I then used my Mum's laptop (am using it now) and realised that there should be some BIOS beeps if there were errors. So I plugged the speaker back in so I could listen for any beeps on power up. Nothing. A check of the manual and a successful boot should result in a single short beep. No beep at all. Does sound like the mobo has gone.

The manual also says that if no RAM or GPU is detected then there will be a pattern of beeps. So I remove RAM and the beep pattern expected for no RAM doesn't occur. Same for removing GPU. Sounding increasingly like the mobo has gone. So no BIOS beeps at all on this mobo (successful boot or otherwise) suggests the mobo is definitely gone. Either damaged in some way or I've somehow been careless and somehow caused a static discharge which could have affected the 4870. But for pretty much the whole day the new PSU has been plugged into the case and into the mains so the new case should have been earthed for most of the day. However if there has been static discharge putting the 4870 into my old PC could possibly have carried the static discharge over? And putting my x1800XT into the new PC the same. So that could explain why neither PC will boot and both PCs prompt the monitors to say "No input detected".

The only thing that makes me not believe static discharge has affected my old PC is that it was definitely earthed. So only the 4870 coming over already affected could have caused an issue with my old PC.

I've tried taking one stick of RAM out and booting with that. Nothing. Used the other stick on its on and same result. Took the sound card out and nothing. Reset the BIOS by moving the BIOS jumper over for 10-15 seconds. Still nothing. I also unplugged the Samsung 1Tb drive and the Pioneer DVD-RW drive from their SATA sockets leaving the WD640Gb disk on its own. Nothing.

So after a long ramble can anyone else suggest anything I can do with the two PCs I have to test. My old PC is a 939 so I can't swap the CPUs. I want to do as much testing as I can before I have to RMA anything. If I do have to RMA what should I RMA? The mobo and GPU?

Please accept my apologies for this long post but it has been a long day and I've no idea what is wrong and how I can fix it.

[piggin23]

If you had your components from SCAN then give them a ring in the morning and they will raise a RMA for you and you can send it all back. They will then test it and replace what is U/S.

This is what they did for me when I had a problem with a new MB, RAM & CPU.

Sent it away, tested and returned within a week.

[MarcLister]

Cheers piggin23. I've just realised I didn't plug the 8pin power socket in. Trying that now. If that doesn't work then it could be an RMA but hopefully not.

[piggin23]

That sounds like your problem.

[MarcLister]

It was. How could I forget that?

[MarcLister]

It'll be great if you can post some pics because although I do prefer my P182 to the eclipse I still have a soft spot for it And it is massive inside

Better late than never eh! Been running this since early November but only just got around to taking pics.

Case sideways on
Case front end on
Case sideways on but panel removed
Gratuitous shot of the twin-fan-cooled Noctua UH-12P heatsink. The fan on the right blows air onto the cooler. Fan on left sucks air off and pushes it towards the rear exhaust fan.
Memory slots look OK and free, ripe for another 4Gb pack.
SATA slot - To the right of the furthest right RAM slot, under the SATA 3 text and behind the graphics card is what I thought was my last free SATA port. I should be OK with a right-angled SATA cable in there but the red mass to the right are SATA ports 4 and 5. The red cables coming from ports 1-3 for my two hard drives and my optical drive. So I reckon I can plug in a Blu-ray optical drive into port 4 say.