alphawhisky

Thought I'd post a quick update as I finally had a chance to look at the set-up. I wanted to post an update, particularly for other newbies in the same situation – perhaps my "lessons learned" will be of help to others(!) If you're a newbie, try building a PC. It's stressful but fun! Lots of great advice online, so just read-up and take your time. When folks like @tkitch suggest you might have screwed up your cooler install, listen to them. (Turns out, I did). I'd not only mounted the fan the wrong way in the cooler, but also realised that after initially applying the thermal paste, I took the cooler off and then re-attached it. Seems this is a giant no-no. I cleaned the thermal paste off, re-applied the cooler (with correctly oriented fan), re-enabled PBO and CPB, and then checked what my temps were like. Running a 10 min run in Cinebench saw temps hit a max of 58c (compared to 95c before!) Thereafter, temps quickly return to a cool-ish 32c. Very happy with that (and, if I can figure out how, I guess there may be scope for some mild overclocking!) Thanks to everyone who replied and kept me on the right track.

So, I did some digging and learned something. The first is that using the smart controls in the BIOS for the fans is probably not the best idea. The fan curve, by default, was not ideal. I've ramped up all the fans, particularly the CPU fan. Even in the BIOS, that saw a decent reduction in temps. I also tried disabling 'Precision Boost Overdrive' and 'Core Performance Boost'. Now, I'm sitting at around 35c CPU core temps. That seems more sensible, right? As per earlier chat, I will double-check the CPU cooler anyways, particularly verifying that I got the fan alignment right. But, I think it's probably fixed. I've only scanned info online regarding the options I disabled, but hopefully I've not left too much performance on the table(!)

Just updating... A 10min run in Cinebench R23 saw temps hit a max of 95c. It does cool pretty quickly, dropping back to 65c within a minute of the test ending. For reference, I got 13,449 pts on the multi-core. A quick Google shows the same CPU scoring around 14077 pts, so it's perhaps a little slower than it ought to be, but maybe not by much? The single core got 1,463pts (temps remained around 70c during 10min single core run). Maybe it's all fine and I'm just panicking over nothing...

Will try that now, @tkitch, thanks. Can I ask what sort of temps you'd expect in Cinebench R23? I'll try that now and hope for the best! If I reinstall the cooler, would it be worth cleaning off the thermal paste and reapplying?

Ha, thanks @tkitch -- that's very true and I accept that absolutely! You may well be right because, even though it's the one bit of the install where I was fastidious at 'RTFM'ing, I could have still made an arse of it... I will take the PC apart tomorrow and see if I can reseat the cooler. Following the suggestion from @WoodenMarker, I installed OCCT. CPU (Tctl/Tdie) hit a max of 94.5c on a 5 min stress test. The individual cores were listed as being between 79c and 93c max. Following the test, temps did return relatively quickly to around 60c.

Thanks, @tkitch! It's mounted well, so definitely not that. I followed those instructions to the letter and the mounting screws are as tight as they'll go (without being over-tightened). Thermal paste was applied to the CPU. Noctua's guide suggested the '5-dice' pattern which is what I followed. Wonder if there was too much or not enough thermal paste, though.

Hi all, Apologies in advance... I am a noob! I've had great help from the forum in planning my first build (not my first PC, but the first time I've built myself). After a bit of a hiccup with a cooler that wouldn't fit my motherboard, I am now running... Albeit, a little on the toasty side. The build is an AMD Ryzen 5 5700X, on an MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus motherboard, and a Noctua NH-D9L CPU cooler (using a single Noctua NF-A9 92mm fan). The case is the MSI Sekira 100R, which has 3 intake fans and one exhaust fan. (All 120mm). As I type this, my system is pretty much idling (2% CPU usage) with CPU core temps around 54c. However, it seems to peak very easily... When I was installing some new software, it hit 85c despite the loads being relatively limited. I'd hate to think what it might hit if I stress test. It may be that I'm being overly cautious, but I cannot emphasise enough how much this is all new to me! I'm wondering what might be causing this... If indeed it is actually an issue. I'd wondered whether I'd perhaps not put enough thermal paste on, or perhaps too much (though none seeped out when adding the cooler). I guess it's possible I also got the fan alignment on the CPU cooler the wrong way around and it's not venting well. I guess either the case or CPU cooler are maybe not quite good enough, but I don't have the knowledge to guess. Any suggestions?! Thanks for reading!

I had looked at the 5600X. On Scan, anyway, it's £30 more. On the basis of the performance I've seen, I'm not convinced it's worth it. But that's from my perspective with a limited knowledge in this area

Thanks, @PDifolco! Appreciate your advice. Any recommendations on a cooler for the Ryzen if I don't use stock? Thanks again

Budget (including currency): £500 (~$575 USD) Country: UK Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Work machine, mostly running Adobe Creative Suite but also some development (Python). Light gaming (otherwise use Xbox Series X for gaming!) Need a machine capable of managing a ridiculous number of Chrome tabs Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I currently run an i7-6700 on an H110M Pro-VH motherboard with 32GB of RAM (Corsair Vengeance 3200) with a Radeon RX 590 graphics card. The machine is beginning to show its age a little, with slowdowns. The motherboard is something of a restricting factor. I can't go above 32GB of RAM, no M.2 storage options (so running a SATA SSD boot drive), and although gaming isn't a big factor, I can't go beyond PCIe 3. (Though I guess this also impacts storage options!) I know Black Friday is coming up and with a slew of recent releases, I'm hoping slightly older tech will come down in cost. Here's what I've pulled together today. To save money, I'll be recycling some of the components from my existing system, by keeping the RAM and graphics card, as well as moving over the storage (1x 8TB mechanical hard drive, plus 2x 2TB SATA SSDs). Motherboard: ASRock B550M Pro4 Micro-ATX Motherboard (£100 via Scan) Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 (£100 via Scan) Boot Drive: WD Black SN770 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe (£80 via Scan) PSU: EVGA 750 B5 80 PLUS Bronze 750W Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£80 via Scan) Case: Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Mid Tower (£90 via Scan) That brings the total to £450, so definitely within my budget. A few questions if I may! Thoughts on performance of the 5600 vs my existing i7-6700? Worthy upgrade path? Could save a buck by keeping my existing PSU (Thermaltake Smart RGB 80+ White 700W) though I'd prefer a fully modular PSU if possible... Is the included cooler with the Ryzen good enough? I've done PC upgrades previously, but never built my own system. Is it worth waiting for Black Friday for a budget pre-built? And, on a similar theme, do you think component prices will drop significantly during Black Friday itself? Thanks for reading. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not having much luck with my Xbox Series X... I ordered a Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 earlier this year and it was promptly returned. I thought it was faulty. However, after getting Microsoft's own wireless headset, I realised (after a bit of Googling) that the issue lies with the Microsoft Wireless Protocol. There are a lot of posts online that talk about wireless interference. I was getting exactly that... Sound cutting out, quality degrading, etc. The problem is, whilst I can plug my Bose headphones into my controller for now, I do really want to get a wireless headset system. The challenge is, I haven't been able to find a good summary of what headsets come with a wireless dongle and which rely on the MS Wireless Protocol. Obviously, I'm looking at the former and not the latter! But a lot of listings don't really make things clear... Anyone have any suggestions? I'm not looking at spending top dollar as I don't game enough to justify a big expenditure, so something in the lower end of the price market would be ideal. But I never want to hear mention of the Microsoft Wireless Protocol again... Thanks for reading!

Thanks again to @BiotechBen! It turns out it was a driver issue after all... Although the driver was properly installed and no updates available (at least according to Windows), I downloaded the most recent Realtek driver from the motherboard manufacturer site, removed the old one, installed the new one and... hey presto!

All ports on the router are gigabit. Though I have tried others just in case. No difference. Are there decent external USB network adapters that I could at least try to see if that resolves?

Thanks, @BiotechBen. I've checked in device manager and there, at least according to Windows, the driver is up to date.

So, here's my current 'set-up' in terms of networking. I have a full fibre 500Mbps internet connection. From the ONT, I connect this into an Orbi mesh network (one Orbi RBR50 in my downstairs lounge and one Orbi RBS50 in my upstairs home office). These use the dedicated wireless backhaul. My home-office is where the Orbi satellite is located. I was getting a bit frustrated as my desktop PC is connected via ethernet into the Orbi satellite, but I never get more than 150Mbps down on speed tests (using the standalone Speedtest app). I've tried lots of servers just to be sure and at different times. I'd run some speed tests on a laptop either connected directly to the ONT or to the Orbi primary router, and got great speeds (pretty much at 500Mbps). I had initially thought that the issue is just wireless overhead and perhaps not the strongest backhaul wireless signal. However, my Xbox Series X is also connected to the satellite (wired), along with the desktop PC (ok, so it's a home office but not _just_ for work!) It easily manages ~350Mbps when downloading games and updates. Running the Xbox diagnostics shows a download speed of 500Mbps... Pretty much the max my connection supports. Which leads me to wonder WTF is going on with my desktop PC (oh, I mean, it's great that the Xbox runs so fast, but I work at home every day and very rarely play games...) Could my issue on the desktop PC actually be the ethernet interface? It is a gigabit connection and I've already tried a few different network cables (including a couple of new ones, just in case). What else could be the cause? Would it be worth either getting a network PCIe Gigabit Network Card or maybe an external USB3 networking interface to see if that resolves the issue? Thanks in advance for any advice from the LTT community!