Question What cooling do you recommend for my system?

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MrYossu

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Dec 15, 2013
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My system has been running very hot during the warm weather, with temperatures into the mid 80s at times. Even when the weather is only pleasantly warm, it can still run quite hot. It's in a south-facing office with poor ventilation, and even with fan blowing on it all the time, it usually runs quite warm.

I'm thinking about putting some cooling in, but am not really sure what to go for. You can see the system specs here.

I'm no hardware whizz, so am happy to spend a little bit more for something that just plugs in.

Anyone able to recommend? If you need any more info, please let me know.

Thanks
 
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Can't really say with just the raw hardware stats and no temperatures.

What CPU cooler is on there now?
What case is it in, does it have adequate fans?
What are the CPU temperatures?

If speccy is correct you are crippling the CPU with a single 32GB stick? Dual channel processor, it really needs two memory sticks for proper operation.

NVS 510 is basically an expensive display output, not a lot of heat coming from there.

My guess is you probably just need a better CPU cooler, but can't make any suggestions without knowing what will fit inside the chassis.
 
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Thanks for the reply.

I don't have any CPU cooler at the moment.

Not sure what the case is, as this was a custom build by someone at a local PC shop, and he chose the case for me. It has three fans on the front, and one on the back.

CPU temps right now are around 70 degs C, but were up to the mid-80s earlier.

Thanks for the tip about memory, didn't realise that. I'm happy to shove another 32G stick in.

Does that help? Please let me know if you need any more information.

Thanks again.
 
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MrYossu said:
Thanks for the reply.

I don't have any CPU cooler at the moment.

Not sure what the case is, as this was a custom build by someone at a local PC shop, and he chose the case for me. It has three fans on the front, and one on the back.

CPU temps right now are around 70 degs C, but were up to the mid-80s earlier.

Thanks for the tip about memory, didn't realise that. I'm happy to shove another 32G stick in.

Does that help? Please let me know if you need any more information.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...
How warm is it in your office even your ext disk is running hot?
I don't think you need another stick of ram it looks like you have 2 sticks.
Look in the manual for the proper slots to use for dual channel.
 
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Don't know the actual temperature in my office, but it gets pretty hot and stuffy. It's OK in the winter, but can be hard in the summer. In the current heatwave it's awful! I have three fans blowing on me and the PC, and it's still hot and stuffy.

I did a quick check, and running the following command...

wmic memorychip get devicelocator, manufacturer, partnumber, serialnumber, capacity, speed, memorytype, formfactor

...shows me the following...

Capacity DeviceLocator FormFactor Manufacturer MemoryType PartNumber SerialNumber Speed
17179869184 DIMM 0 8 Unknown 0 CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 00000000 3200
17179869184 DIMM 1 8 Unknown 0 CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 00000000 3200

If I read that correctly, it looks like I do have two sticks in there, 32Gb each.

Thanks for the reply. Any thoughts on the cooling?
 
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@Eximo Found a pic of a case that looks very much like mine...

ha.png

I originally looked at www.pc.uk (this page to be precise), and chose that case as it was the cheapest with three fans on the front. When I got the build from a local specialist, he gave me something very similar. I didn't keep the box, so I don't know exactly what it is.
 
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MrYossu said:
Thanks for the reply.

I don't have any CPU cooler at the moment.

Not sure what the case is, as this was a custom build by someone at a local PC shop, and he chose the case for me. It has three fans on the front, and one on the back.

CPU temps right now are around 70 degs C, but were up to the mid-80s earlier.

Thanks for the tip about memory, didn't realise that. I'm happy to shove another 32G stick in.
Click to expand...

You certainly have a CPU cooler, presumably just the included AMD one if you aren't sure.

That should be enough fans for this build, overkill really.

Yes, looks like you do have two ram sticks, they are just both in the same channel. There should be an empty slot between them, and typically, the memory slot that is furthest away from the CPU should be populated. So [CPU] blank, RAM, blank, RAM.

80C max is a little warm, but not that bad for a 3900X on the stock cooler.
 
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MrYossu said:
Don't know the actual temperature in my office, but it gets pretty hot and stuffy. It's OK in the winter, but can be hard in the summer. In the current heatwave it's awful! I have three fans blowing on me and the PC, and it's still hot and stuffy.

I did a quick check, and running the following command...

wmic memorychip get devicelocator, manufacturer, partnumber, serialnumber, capacity, speed, memorytype, formfactor

...shows me the following...

Capacity DeviceLocator FormFactor Manufacturer MemoryType PartNumber SerialNumber Speed
17179869184 DIMM 0 8 Unknown 0 CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 00000000 3200
17179869184 DIMM 1 8 Unknown 0 CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 00000000 3200

If I read that correctly, it looks like I do have two sticks in there, 32Gb each.

Thanks for the reply. Any thoughts on the cooling?
Click to expand...

No, just two 16 GB sticks, but with one in the wrong slot.
 
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Eximo said:
You certainly have a CPU cooler, presumably just the included AMD one if you aren't sure.
Click to expand...
Oh, shows how much I know about hardware eh?

Eximo said:
That should be enough fans for this build, overkill really.

Yes, looks like you do have two ram sticks, they are just both in the same channel. There should be an empty slot between them, and typically, the memory slot that is furthest away from the CPU should be populated. So [CPU] blank, RAM, blank, RAM.
Click to expand...
OK, thanks for the advice. I'll take a peek inside and move one over.

Eximo said:
80C max is a little warm, but not that bad for a 3900X on the stock cooler.
Click to expand...
Really? I thought it was far too hot.

So do you think I don't need extra cooling? The reason I was asking (apart from a general feeling that it was running too warm) was that the PC cut out this afternoon, around the time it was at its hottest. Couldn't see any reason why it would do that (never done it before), so assumed it was the heat.

Thanks again.
 
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MrYossu said:
Don't know the actual temperature in my office, but it gets pretty hot and stuffy. It's OK in the winter, but can be hard in the summer. In the current heatwave it's awful! I have three fans blowing on me and the PC, and it's still hot and stuffy.

I did a quick check, and running the following command...

wmic memorychip get devicelocator, manufacturer, partnumber, serialnumber, capacity, speed, memorytype, formfactor

...shows me the following...

Capacity DeviceLocator FormFactor Manufacturer MemoryType PartNumber SerialNumber Speed
17179869184 DIMM 0 8 Unknown 0 CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 00000000 3200
17179869184 DIMM 1 8 Unknown 0 CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 00000000 3200

If I read that correctly, it looks like I do have two sticks in there, 32Gb each.

Thanks for the reply. Any thoughts on the cooling?
Click to expand...
You have 2 sticks 0f 16GB each 32GB total.
You have 4 slots for ram
The slot closest to the cpu is #1.
Normal slots for 2 sticks is #2+#4.

If your office is that hot it will be tough to cool the pc.
Take the side panel off the case and see if it helps.
 
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@Eximo I had a look in the manual for my motherboard, and on page 12 (note #2 under the table showing memory configs) it says that if I have two modules, they should be in the DDR4_A2 and DDR4_B2 sockets. Mine were in DDR4_B1 and DDR4_B2 slots.

I fixed that, but haven't noticed the slightest change in the performance of the PC. I'm a software developer, and my main workhorse is Microsoft Visual Studio, which is a pretty heavy piece of software. If I were to get any CPU improvements, I would have expected to see it using that, but haven't.

Any thoughts? Thanks again.
 
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MrYossu said:
@Eximo I had a look in the manual for my motherboard, and on page 12 (note #2 under the table showing memory configs) it says that if I have two modules, they should be in the DDR4_A2 and DDR4_B2 sockets. Mine were in DDR4_B1 and DDR4_B2 slots.

I fixed that, but haven't noticed the slightest change in the performance of the PC. I'm a software developer, and my main workhorse is Microsoft Visual Studio, which is a pretty heavy piece of software. If I were to get any CPU improvements, I would have expected to see it using that, but haven't.

Any thoughts? Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Run another speccy and post a link.
 
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MrYossu said:
@Eximo I had a look in the manual for my motherboard, and on page 12 (note #2 under the table showing memory configs) it says that if I have two modules, they should be in the DDR4_A2 and DDR4_B2 sockets. Mine were in DDR4_B1 and DDR4_B2 slots.

I fixed that, but haven't noticed the slightest change in the performance of the PC. I'm a software developer, and my main workhorse is Microsoft Visual Studio, which is a pretty heavy piece of software. If I were to get any CPU improvements, I would have expected to see it using that, but haven't.

Any thoughts? Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you do in there. Large compile jobs would benefit, but quick ones that only take a few seconds, probably not going to notice anything.
 
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Eximo said:
Depends on what you do in there. Large compile jobs would benefit, but quick ones that only take a few seconds, probably not going to notice anything.
Click to expand...

VS uses a lot of CPU on startup, for up to a minute (depending on the size of the solution), and that's what I was basing my comments on. Compiling is pretty fast anyway, partly due to a very good compiler, and partly because I use Resharper, which has an even better wrapper round the compiler.

Thanks
 
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@Bob.B I have been keeping an eye on that since Sunday (first day back after a break), but as the weather has cooled down quite a bit, the temps are anyway much more reasonable. I'm seeing CPU temps of around 55 degs C.

As it happens, I have Speccy and Open hardware Monitor running 🆒, just for the fun of it!
 
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