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!

Hi all, I recently completed a fresh install of Windows 10. I was hoping this would solve a long-running issue on my Windows 10 (Pro, 64bit). The issue is that the monitors never go to standby. E.g., I have 'when plugged in, turn off after 1 minute' selected. The screens will flicker off, then immediately come back on. This glitch also prevents the computer going to sleep. I completed a clean install, then began the process of reinstalling software/drivers, etc. At this point, I realised the issue is being caused by the AMD Radeon software. After a bit of Googling, I realise I'm not alone in this but couldn't find any specific info regarding the resolution. I did try fully uninstalling the AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2020 edition software, and tried the Radeon Pro software instead, but same issue with this. Although I have almost no time for gaming, I still need a driver (the Windows Basic driver allows for 1024x768 and that is about it!) For reference, the card is a Radeon RX 590. Rest of the system is an i7-6700 CPU on an MSI H110 PRO-VH motherboard. All drivers are up-to-date. Note, this was a long-standing issue before the clean install of Win10, so driver updates don't seem to be the cause. Anyone got any advice or suggestions? Thanks! Andy

Many thanks @Aereldor - really appreciate you taking the time to put that spec together. To be honest, I hadn't thought that a Threadripper would be anywhere close to my budget (well, it's slightly over but not by as much as I would have thought!) Definitely something to contemplate. Thanks again for taking the time!

Budget (including currency): £2300 GBP (~$3000 USD) Country: UK Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mostly productivity (Adobe Creative Suite, some web development, light gaming though not the priority as I never have time!) 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): Currently have 2x 4k monitors hooked up to existing rig. It's showing its age now and is beginning to drag, particularly when editing in Premiere Pro or rendering out After Effects files. Even Photoshop and Lightroom are dragging. I'm looking at buying from Scan in the UK - has anyone used them and any thoughts? Initial research shows they have a good reputation for custom builds. Here's what I've put together so far. I'm comfortable in most of the component choices but unsure about the cases and cooling if anyone can give some pointers, it'd be appreciated. Cases NZXT H710 [Black] £134.99 inc VAT Motherboards ASUS ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING £235.49 inc VAT AMD CPUs AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, Zen 2, 12-core with SMT, 3.8GHz, 4.6GHz Turbo £431.99 inc VAT CPU Coolers Corsair Hydro H100x - 240mm Liquid Cooler £84.98 inc VAT Memory 64GB (4x16GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance RGB PRO - 3200MHz £337.49 inc VAT Graphics Card 8GB EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER BLACK GAMING, 2560 Cores, 1770MHz Boost, 14000MHz GDDR6 - GeForce RTX VR Ready [Single card] £561.98 inc VAT Power Supply Unit Corsair RM650x, Modular, Silent, 80PLUS Gold - Single GPU £104.99 inc VAT Storage - Solid State Drives - PCIe (M.2) 1TB Corsair Force MP600, 4950MB/s Read, 4250MB/s Write, 680K IOPS £209.99 inc VAT Aftermarket Fans Not Selected LED Lighting Addressable RGB Lighting £29.99 inc VAT Operating System No OS Required £0.00 inc VAT Extended Warranty 3 Year Warranty - 1st Year Onsite, 2nd & 3rd Year Return to Base (Parts & Labour). £0.00 inc VAT My intention would be to add my existing internal hard drives to this (a couple of 8TB internal SATA drives) hence why I'm only going for the 1TB NVME boot drive. I'm not planning any overclocking and, as above, I very rarely get time to game so that's not my priority. Any other comments on the build and components would be appreciated. Thanks, Andy

I just find it has slowed quite a bit recently, though may entirely be in my head - I tend to find that any time I see new hardware launches, my mind tells me my existing system is really slow! ? Unfortunately, I can't get faster RAM than I have as the motherboard doesn't support it (I think). Thanks for recommendation on the board. It's about $65 USD (£50/€60) more but assume that's worthwhile. Cheers also for suggestion on RAM. In terms of the CPU, if stock cooler is fine, I'm happy to go with that. Think I'd seen comments on it running hot on Reddit but appreciate that everything is subjective (and lot of idiots online too!) As to PSU, yes, it was really cheap but at the time, it was all I could afford! I did get it at a good price. Don't care about RGB as PC isn't exactly visible in my set-up but it does run really quiet - though that's comparative to my old PSU that, as it began to fail, ended up sounding like an aeroplane taking off...

Hey all, I'm contemplating an upgrade of my system and could really do with a bit of advice. Currently, I have an Intel Core i7 6700 (3.4Ghz base) on an MSI H110M Pro-VH motherboard with 16GB of DDR4-2133. This system is now 3 years old and I had been intending on replacing the entire system within the next couple of months. Fate had another idea and both my graphics card and PSU failed within a month or so of each other :( So, with a new PSU (Thermaltake Smart RGB 80+ 700W) and graphics card (Radeon RX590), I'm now thinking of upgrading some other components but wanted some expert advice before I undertake anything. I'm looking at a new motherboard (MSI X570-A Pro) along with the Ryzen 5 3600X. Couple of quick questions though: To save some cash, I'd probably keep the DDR4-2133 RAM. However, it's not a massive cost to include 16GB of DDR4-3000 - would this be a worthwhile upgrade? Conscious that, if memory costs do come down, I could look at 32GB in due course rather than upgrading right away... In other words, how much would performance be a drag with DDR4-2133. Along the same lines, I'd probably keep my internal boot SSD (standard SATA 2.5", can't quite remember which type!) I know the suggested new mainboard does support PCIe gen4 so I could look at a gen4 M.2 drive, but this is super expensive (in the UK, around £200 for a 1TB drive). I know the speed benefit would be considerable... Any thoughts? Have heard that the Ryzen 5 3600x runs quite hot - I'll not be overclocking, but is it worth upgrading the stock cooler? Other than that, I'd keep my internal 8TB drive, along with the optical drive (though not sure when I last used it!) and the Radeon RX590, etc. For reference, my machine is mainly productivity - some video/photo editing (I will hopefully be moving to 4K video editing but may do this by proxies if speed is poor). And some very casual gaming (I suck at most everything). Dual screen set-up, both at 4k so I obviously don't run native resolution when I do game :D One option is to save the hassle of upgrading myself and just look at a new system anyway (with current box being relegated to my Plex media server). Obviously much more expensive, but this system was purchased on quite a tight budget at the time and some corners were cut by the PC builder (crap PSU obviously, not great air-flow internally, lacking in case fans, etc.) Some of these could be resolved but that's perhaps for another day. Any thoughts would be really appreciated, thanks for reading. Cheers, Andy

Thanks Slottr, appreciate the comment. Realise 4k gaming is out of my price range (and, to be honest, it'd be such a monumental waste of money... I forgot to mention that I'm not very good at gaming anyway!) Would something like this be a good shout? https://www.ebuyer.com/881376-asrock-phantom-gaming-d-radeon-rx-580-8gb-oc-gddr5-graphics-card-90-ga0m00-00uanf (ASRock Phantom Gaming D Radeon RX 580 8GB OC GDDR5 Graphics Card) Do you think prices will drop substantially in the next couple of weeks with the new Nvidia cards hitting the market? Thanks again! Andy

I came back from a couple of weeks travelling to find my PC acting up - screens would blank out and computer would randomly restart. I was going to register here and post for ideas for troubleshooting, but then it failed altogether. I switched to the built-in graphics and now have a working system (single screen... killing me!) I'm about to head off on another work trip but will need to sort a new graphics card when I'm back. And, I really don't know where to start! My current spec is: i7 6700 CPU 16GB RAM Windows 10 Pro Dead graphics card was a NVidia GTX950 If it wasn't already readily apparent, I'm not much of a gamer - just casual gaming now and then. My system is almost entirely work based (photo editing, graphic design, etc.) The challenge I've found in gaming is that I have 2 x 4k screens for work space, and I don't want to drop a fortune on a graphics card for the occasional game of Rocket League, Squad, etc. So I'm here for ideas and suggestions! My random thoughts are: The PC itself is now 3 years old and I'm wondering whether I get a new GFX card or just replace the whole system (wasn't intending on replacing it for another year or so as, other than this issue, it is still quite speedy for work) I know new Nvidia cards are coming soon which will impact pricing - happy to wait off to get something (not sure if there's likely to be any cards in the Amazon Prime day sale?) Also aware that AMD cards offer benefits in terms of cost v performance. So, yeah, don't really know where to start. I'd probably be looking at spending around £100 - £300 (probably equivalent to US $100 - $300 with our rip-off prices in the UK!) Hope I've posted in the right place, look forward to any suggestions.