ZebuluniteV
Member
Hi. Recently after seeing several good concurrent deals ($60 after rebate for an Abit IP35-E, $50 after for an E2180, and $60 after rebate for 4GB DDR2-800 Corsair memory), I finally built an Intel desktop ? a sad event for the old AMD fan inside me.
Anyway, I had a few, hopefully just paranoid, concerns after building the system in an Antec P182 case (which I got at Newegg for $60 after free shipping an a rebate ? ironically the best deal of things I purchased for the new system despite initially not intending to buy a new case).
In a bout of stupidity (owing probably to working 12am-6am earlier in the morning and being sick), when putting the system together I tried to install the CPU/fan, a Freezer 7 pro, while the motherboard was already screwed into the case. This, combined with the fact that I initially was putting the fan on backwards, left me exerting a lot of pressure on the motherboard for about close to two hours (and one hell of a sore thumb after pushing on the push pins for such a long time).
So, not only did the fan installation presumably cause the board to flex a lot, but additionally due to the large northbridge heatsink on the IP35-E and the large heatsink on the Freezer 7 Pro, securing the CPU fan onto the motherboard left it putting a lot of pressure on the northbridge heatsink, visibly tilting the heatsink. Granted, this was less so after orientating the CPU fan the correct way, but still seemed quite worrying. I could at some point try sanding down that corner of the CPU fan, but for a while won't have easy access to any tools to do that.
After finally cobbling the system together, I was fearful that I may have damaged the motherboard due to the above reasons. However, so far, the system has preformed perfectly stably. I was able to overclock the E2180 to 3.0Ghz to 300x10 perfectly fine with only a minor (I believe .4 V) increase. Anything much above that either failed to boot, or would freeze very quickly after running Prime 95, but from what I?ve read a 3GHz overclock is the wall for many E2xxx CPUs. I was strangely unable to get 333x6 to work even with a huge increase in CPU voltage, though again that?s probably the CPU. Additionally to explain that, owing to all the issues I was having with the CPU fan install, I never bothered to try reapplying the thermal grease after each install. I would think it would be fine since it should spread out on its own, but that of course could be a confounding variable to the above. Also I haven't updated the motherboard BIOS yet, so I'm hesitant to call the CPU not overclocking easily/at all above 3GHz or 300MHz FSB a motherboard damage issue yet.
Anyway, hopefully my concerns are just paranoia, but given that I want to have this system running for quite a while (eventually I?ll buy a higher end 45nm Core 2 Quad CPU and a newer videocard, and at any rate I need it to last to justify the completely unnecessary, though shockingly cheap, 8GB of ram I bought), I?d like to be as sure as possible that I didn?t cause any lasting damage during that install. Is there any realistic possibility that I either caused lasting damage from motherboard flex that for some bizarre reason just hasn?t noticeably manifested itself or, perhaps more realistically, that the pressure the Freezer 7 Pro is placing on the northbridge heatsink could lead to any later issues?
Thanks.
And on a sidenote, I was quite pleased to see the significant increase in performance coming just from this overclocked low-end CPU in Supreme Commander. While my Athlon 64 X2 (a 3800+ on Socket 939 overclocked to 2.6GHz) based system would slow down to near unplayable levels after 30 minutes or so on a map like Seton with 3AI players, my new E2180 system at 3Ghz ran the same map with 5AI and only minimal slowdown after a half-hour (the slowdown wasn?t hugely noticeable, but looking at the game clock a game-second seemed a bit longer than a real-life second). Now, at the 50 or so minute mark the game did crash, but it sounds like I could have been running into the 2GB barrier (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3044&p=1). I highly doubt at any rate that the crash was related to hardware instability, as the system exited into Windows, which then ran perfectly fine, and moreover the system has run Folding@Home for over a 24-hour period so far without seemingly any issues.
Anyway, I had a few, hopefully just paranoid, concerns after building the system in an Antec P182 case (which I got at Newegg for $60 after free shipping an a rebate ? ironically the best deal of things I purchased for the new system despite initially not intending to buy a new case).
In a bout of stupidity (owing probably to working 12am-6am earlier in the morning and being sick), when putting the system together I tried to install the CPU/fan, a Freezer 7 pro, while the motherboard was already screwed into the case. This, combined with the fact that I initially was putting the fan on backwards, left me exerting a lot of pressure on the motherboard for about close to two hours (and one hell of a sore thumb after pushing on the push pins for such a long time).
So, not only did the fan installation presumably cause the board to flex a lot, but additionally due to the large northbridge heatsink on the IP35-E and the large heatsink on the Freezer 7 Pro, securing the CPU fan onto the motherboard left it putting a lot of pressure on the northbridge heatsink, visibly tilting the heatsink. Granted, this was less so after orientating the CPU fan the correct way, but still seemed quite worrying. I could at some point try sanding down that corner of the CPU fan, but for a while won't have easy access to any tools to do that.
After finally cobbling the system together, I was fearful that I may have damaged the motherboard due to the above reasons. However, so far, the system has preformed perfectly stably. I was able to overclock the E2180 to 3.0Ghz to 300x10 perfectly fine with only a minor (I believe .4 V) increase. Anything much above that either failed to boot, or would freeze very quickly after running Prime 95, but from what I?ve read a 3GHz overclock is the wall for many E2xxx CPUs. I was strangely unable to get 333x6 to work even with a huge increase in CPU voltage, though again that?s probably the CPU. Additionally to explain that, owing to all the issues I was having with the CPU fan install, I never bothered to try reapplying the thermal grease after each install. I would think it would be fine since it should spread out on its own, but that of course could be a confounding variable to the above. Also I haven't updated the motherboard BIOS yet, so I'm hesitant to call the CPU not overclocking easily/at all above 3GHz or 300MHz FSB a motherboard damage issue yet.
Anyway, hopefully my concerns are just paranoia, but given that I want to have this system running for quite a while (eventually I?ll buy a higher end 45nm Core 2 Quad CPU and a newer videocard, and at any rate I need it to last to justify the completely unnecessary, though shockingly cheap, 8GB of ram I bought), I?d like to be as sure as possible that I didn?t cause any lasting damage during that install. Is there any realistic possibility that I either caused lasting damage from motherboard flex that for some bizarre reason just hasn?t noticeably manifested itself or, perhaps more realistically, that the pressure the Freezer 7 Pro is placing on the northbridge heatsink could lead to any later issues?
Thanks.
And on a sidenote, I was quite pleased to see the significant increase in performance coming just from this overclocked low-end CPU in Supreme Commander. While my Athlon 64 X2 (a 3800+ on Socket 939 overclocked to 2.6GHz) based system would slow down to near unplayable levels after 30 minutes or so on a map like Seton with 3AI players, my new E2180 system at 3Ghz ran the same map with 5AI and only minimal slowdown after a half-hour (the slowdown wasn?t hugely noticeable, but looking at the game clock a game-second seemed a bit longer than a real-life second). Now, at the 50 or so minute mark the game did crash, but it sounds like I could have been running into the 2GB barrier (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3044&p=1). I highly doubt at any rate that the crash was related to hardware instability, as the system exited into Windows, which then ran perfectly fine, and moreover the system has run Folding@Home for over a 24-hour period so far without seemingly any issues.
