How do you detect a broken power supply

[loafing_smurf]

I see

So there is no need for AS 5 or aftermarket thermal paste/adhesive?

 

[Grimmy]

Not really. As far as the adhesive, that would be more for permanent application, so you would really need to be sure you would never want to take it apart ever again.

Here's a quote on the caution:

CAUTION! Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive is a permanent adhesive. If you do not follow the instructions for diluting the adhesive with Arctic Silver Thermal Compound, any components you attach together with full-strength Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive will stay attached forever.

All I can say is be careful if you get that stuff. The thermal pad I use for my Thermaltake HS work fine as is, and would not get as hot as for say a CPU or GPU, which would matter more then ram chips in using thermal grease.

 

[bobwya]

I see

So there is no need for AS 5 or aftermarket thermal paste/adhesive?

I have successfully fitted watercooled RAM sinks to some old Geil DDR RAM I had. It was a biattch to get the stock RAM sinks off (necessitating soaking them in some thermal compound remover solution). It was a bit touch and go to get them with a screwdriver! Thankfully the compound on the old thermal pads with greatly weakened so I didn't end up pulling parts of the RAM chips off with heatsinks!!

I used a tiny bit of Silca gel to insulate visible circuit traces beside the RAM chips and then MX2 on the surface of the chips. MX2 is practically non-conductive and as such is a better alternative to AS5!! Amazingly I got the board to POST in a recent test!!

I wouldn't have attempted this 2-3 years ago so definitely go with good quality thermal pads if you are just starting out!! It was all a bit alarming (especially if you know the price of 2Gb of Geil PC3700 RAM some 3-4 years ago)!!

Bob

 

[Grimmy]

MX-2 is a great product. What I really like about it, no cure time.

 

[loafing_smurf]

Here is what I just ordered.

- Scythe Kama Wing Adjustable Aluminum Memory Heatsinks

- Corsair Dominator Airflow Memory Fan

- Arctic Silver ArctiClean 1 & 2 Thermal Surface Cleaner & Purifier 60ML Kit (2) 30ML Bottles

- Mg Chemicals Label & Adhesive Remover

- Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound Paste NON-ELECTRICAL Conductive 4 Gram


First I'm probably going to soak a retractable knife with the adhesive remover. Then carefuly pry off the memory heatsinks. Then finish off any left over thermal adhesive.

After that I'll use the thermal pads that come with the memory heatsink to attach the new heatsinks.

Then I'll attach the memory and Dominator cooler.

And hopefuly this will be the end of all the crashing.

 

[bobwya]

First I'm probably going to soak a retractable knife with the adhesive remover. Then carefuly pry off the memory heatsinks. Then finish off any left over thermal adhesive.

I actually soaked my Geil RAM sticks in Arctic Thermal Surface Cleaner fluid. The sinks still needed quite a bit of force to pry off. Just be careful you don't rip chunks of the RAM chips off with the sinks...!!

Bob

 

[Grimmy]

^dat was my fear after I got the HS off my Ballistix, as well as the serial number that were on them. The Lifetime warranty was then screwed for me, but it seems the 4gb kit is working fine on my E4400, which still has a 2.8ghz OC on them.

 

[loafing_smurf]

I actually soaked my Geil RAM sticks in Arctic Thermal Surface Cleaner fluid. The sinks still needed quite a bit of force to pry off.

How much can you "soak" a stick of memory? Do you wet it a little bit or can you submerge it in adhesive remover?

I'm starting to regret buying memory heatsinks and should have got new ram...

 

[bobwya]

How much can you "soak" a stick of memory? Do you wet it a little bit or can you submerge it in adhesive remover?

I'm starting to regret buying memory heatsinks and should have got new ram...

No I litterally soaked the RAM sticks (i.e. submerged) for 24 hours in the Artictic Thermal Material Remover (1). Mind you I wanted to fit a MIPS watercooled heatsink to the RAM (so I had to get the sinks off). THIS WHOLE PROCEDURE IS NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED!!

Personally if I was you I would that fancy Corsair RAM fan to you existing sticks and not bother taking off the sinks. If the sinks get hot then they are transferring heat outwards from the RAM already. Don't always believe that someone elses problems apply to you. A bit of active cooling can usually overcome these minor cooling problems anyway.

It does sound like you need a better case rather than new RAM anyway. The Antec 900 has very good cooling by all accounts. Modern systems need really good airflow to remain stable.

Good case + good PSU = the bedrock of any good system.



Bob

 

[loafing_smurf]

My order of computer parts came in the mail. And everything is now installed.

It seems that some problems disappeard and new problems appeared.

Problems solved

- I no longer get "STOP 0x000000 F4" blue screens.

- I got an external temperature gauge and the RAM surface idles at about 30 C. And this is with the ram cooling attached.

- My north bridge idles at 48 C.

New problem

-I now get the STOP 0x00000077 (0xC000000E, parameter 2, parameter 3). Which means a broken hard drive, loose connection or broken cable.

- There seems to be no loose connections. So perhaps my hard drive took a beating form all the formats and is now broken?


Additinal points

- I replace the CPU fan and thermal paste with Artic cooling MX-2. I noticed a decrease in temperature by 1 degree.

- I also replaced the thermal paste from my video card. It was a nightmare when the artic clean dissolved the orginal thermal paste. The liquid remover got under the VGA memory. I thought that was it and my video card was broken, but I guess it still works because I'm using it right now without problem.

- The video card now idles at 63 degrees C instead of 67.

 

[bobwya]

New problem

-I now get the STOP 0x00000077 (0xC000000E, parameter 2, parameter 3). Which means a broken hard drive, loose connection or broken cable.

- There seems to be no loose connections. So perhaps my hard drive took a beating form all the formats and is now broken?

When does this problem occur?? When Windows is starting up or while Windows is running?

The stop code actually is described as meaning:
"the drive went unavailable, possibly a bad hard drive, disk array, and/or controller card."

So you basically need to rule out the disc controller (MB I presume??), cable (non-latching SATA cables are evil - worst design in history) or disc drive.

Can you boot into a live CD Linux distro like Ubuntu/Kubuntu or Konoppix? Is this more stable than booting from the HD?

Have you updated your Gigabyte MB BIOS to the latest?

You say you are reinstalling Windows regularly... A fresh install - correct? Are you updating the drivers to the newest versions?

What model HD are you using? What kind of interface (SATA/PATA)? Is the cable shielded?, latching? ??

Spinright 6.0 is a very useful tool for diagnosing HD faults:
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

You just have to work along the chain till you have found the weak link... Prey that it is only one link that is broken!!

Bob

 

[loafing_smurf]

Good news, it appears that all problems are gone.


But, first bobwya

I'd like to mention my gratitude for helping me. This is a problem that started in July, and you persisted to help me to the end of September. If you are in Canada, I'd owe you a beer.

In terms of solving the problem, I blew compressed air in the system again. Then checked all the connections and closed my system case slowly. Just to make sure nothing came loose while closing.

I reinstalled windows and updated the drivers. I must admit that I havent been installing the drivers for the past week, because I'm afriad that my system would crash again. And I can only download 25 GB/month.

My system has been running for 2 days and nothing has gone wrong. I'm instaling all my windows programs and video games. Because I am confident that everything is fixed.

Additional Notes

The average speed of the RAM cooler is 2400 RPM and it keeps the ram at 34 degrees C. If the ram cooler is slowed down to 800 RPM, the ram temperature hits 50 degrees. I immidately increased the cooler speed, out of fear that my system would crash.

At first I had problems viewing websites with flash player. Like youtube and websites full of advertisemnts (toms hardware for one). But updating windows fixed the problem.

Thats all, and it seems like my problems are solved.

 

[bobwya]

Hi mate,

If you are ever in Cambridge, UK then you owe me a beer... Well not really since you did all the work yourself!!

It is not **** about dusty machines being unreliable (well OK your old P2 system might not have cared)... Especially when the PSU gets clogged up with crap... Oh dear he says looking at current rig covered in dust...

Glad that every thing appears to be working now but I would still run stability tests overnight to check you have it nailed... That might sound harsh but if I build a system that can't survice an x264 encode/ CPU burn process (1/core) overnight then I consider to be "broken"!! Also you might be disappointed when the weather gets warmer next year and the machine starts to fail again.

25Gb/month ouch!! I usually download about 4x that much!! I hate all these petty download caps...

Bob

 

[the associate]

Just to add some insight...
Which windows do you have?
If Vista, check to see if your ram was running at the manufacturer's suggested voltage ratings, if it needed more than 1.8 volts, that was your problem right there.
That and slightly slowing down timings does the trick more so than not for vista bsod's and phantom restarts.

Edit: and you think 25gigs a month cap is bad? mMy cap is 20, and i pay 55 bucks a month ffs, F#$k videotron