£1000 PC rebuild

[DannyM]

One of the lads that works for me has been having issues with his computer for a while, I felt quite bad for him as he'd spent around £1000 on it and had his friend put it together.

I brought it home, booted it up, did a the usual virus/malware scans, started HWMonitor up while running 3Dmark and saw some pretty extreme temps. He's running a R9 290 so it was a bit of a given for that to be hot but the CPU was idling at low 50's.

I turned it off, took it apart and this is where the fun began...

http://imgur.com/a/5s716

I didn't get it as perfect as I would of liked but temps went down dramatically.

To anyone thinking of building a PC, a pea size blob of thermal paste on the centre of the CPU is all that's needed anything more (as per the album) and your asking for trouble. Also ensure you have some good airflow, cold air coming from the front and/or bottom of the case with hot air going out of the top/back of the case, this should also help to keep dust levels down in the case as it will be sucked in and blown out through the airflow (not all of it unfortunately).

Also, consider paying someone to build the computer for you if you aren't confident in having a go yourself. Make sure to do plenty of reading before hand if you do decide to have a go.

If nothing else I quite enjoyed rebuilding it. Oh and another tip from this build, don't use sellotape to attach your HDD to the case... Yes this did really happen

[Goobley]

Very good of you to sort this out for him, I'm sure it'll be a lot better now. One of my friends did something similar with a Phenom II under a flat based HSF. The HSF was completely glued to the CPU and I couldn't seem to break the vacuum. I got to the point of the CPU starting to slip out of its socket and the paste still wouldn't let go. I ended up rebooting the computer with the motherboard flat and no screws holding the HSF down so that I could quickly run linpack to get some heat into the paste.
Luckily that loosened it enough to remove it after shutting down the machine though a couple of the pins were a bit bent and had to be very carefully straightened.

So if anyone is having trouble removing a tight heatsink then a quick stress test before shutting down seems to loosen it quite well IME.

[Heisuro]

Watching YouTube videos if you're a first time builder definitely helps

[gupsterg]

I turned it off, took it apart and this is where the fun began...

http://imgur.com/a/5s716

Thought from viewing first image was OMG! and viewing the last made me .

Good on you for sorting it out! .

[carved_eye]

Is there not a sticky on the forum to help out first time builders with hints and tips to guide them in the right direction? Not that i personly need it but the first time builder i think it would help them a lot

[marktops]

Look great!!!