Hello! And... HELP!

[Lordy1976]

Hi everyone! I've been hovering around the forum for a few months. I've learnt so much while getting back up-to-speed with PC bulding, and bulding my new system. So, thank you to all the helpful posters, who probably aren't aware of how many other people like me have probably been helped thanks to their contributions, and haven't signed up to say thanks.

 

Long story short... built my new PC before Christmas. In some ways I was shocked I managed so well - everything posted and loaded on first attempt. Thermals were all beautiful when starting my OC... but I think a few failed overclocks caused me a few issues which have had a small impact on the integrity of the cmos. Overview of my setup:

 

Lian Li Dynamic O11dw

Aorus Master X570, running latest f11 BIOS

Ryzen 3800X, stable OC 4.45ghz @1.3v

Deepcool Castle 360mm, in side mount config (pulling air into case)

3x exhausting fans at top of case

Corsair Vengeance RGB, 4x8GB 3600mhz C18 DDR4, slight OC to 3733, 1:1 with fabric clock
Vertically mounted Gigabyte RTX 2080 Ti Gaming OC 11g, running remapped autoscan OC from manufacturer's app

1x exhaust fan at bottom of case, stopping hot GPU blower air recirculating into case (linked to thermistor temp measured under GPU)

2x 1TB Aorus NVMe PCIe 4.0 drives

 

It's been running beautifully, until I installed the 2nd 1TB drive. After doing a fair bit of reading, I decided against running RAID 0 or 1 (nothing to be gained). So drive 1 is system files and a few games. Drive 2, I migrated my documents, pictures and related personal folders to. I have the small system-managed page file on drive 2 also, along with my steam library.

 

Now I wasn't really expecting too much of a performance lift from this, but I was expecting it to be at least as fast as it was with the single drive. However, alongside various gripes with Creative Suite not recognising the folders moved at system level (Lightroom libraries messed up, InDesign links broken), I'm also finding that background apps/processes seem to be taking 100% longer to load on system boot. Opening games which are now sat on the 2nd drive (Arkham Knight, RDR2 as 2 examples) are also taking much longer to load. I've also randomly started getting audio stutters when gaming and sometimes even when watching YouTube videos.

 

Not sure if this is relevant, but drive 1 is mounted directly under CPU. Drive 2 is in 3rd M.2 slot. Both utilise the manufacturer supplied copper heatsinks. I've not seen drive temps above 60c, even when transferring several hundred GB from one drive to another.

 

I have a second Ryzen Master profile in default PBO mode (BIOS changed so PBO uses MB reference values), so I've tried swapping from my manual OC, but no change. Another thing I've noticed (although I think the system may have done this a couple of times, JUST prior to 2nd drive install), is that power-on bios cycle restarts once before successfully going into windows. I added aftermarket braided cables at the same time as the extra drive, so maybe that's conflating issues!? I'm not sure.

 

This is the first time since relearning and going through the bulid process that I now feel out of my comfort zone, and all out of ideas. I just don't know how distributing the file load across 2 drives, and not bogging down the CPU with software RAID, could lead to lower performance than I started with.

 

Any help/insights would be really appreciated. Thank you in advance!

 

 

 

 

 

[Chiyawa]

Well, this might be a problem, probably, since you are running page file at the 2nd NVMe SSD.

 

For your information, 1 M2 slot is directly connected to the CPU, which is much faster and more reliable, and the rest of the M2 slots connects through the chipset. I suspect that the latency of sending page file to and from the second drive may be high and causes some stuttering and audio problem like you mentioned.

 

Anyway, have you ever check your chipset temperature? Because I may have spotted a flaw. If you place your radiator at the front of your case as an intake, your chipset fan (which is quite near to the front of the case) might have pick up the warm air your radiator release which might cause the temperature to rise and might impact or throttling the PCIe lanes from the chipsets. I would highly recommend you install your Deepcool Castle at the top of your case as exhaust while the three fans install at the front as intake.

[Lordy1976]

Hi Chiyawa. SO sorry - I had 'notify me of replies' ticked, which I assumed would ping me an email when someone responded. Thought I'd come back on the off-chance and saw your advice.

 

Yes you're right - after further investigation, it seems that the 1st M.2 slot is linked to CPU, while slots 2 & 3 run through the chipset. According to De8auer, he was running raid 0 through slots 2 & 3 (the chipset slots), and although his read speed was consistent with a single drive in the first m.2, his write speed more than doubled in raid 0. Well... that benefit doesn't really affect my general use, but it would suggest that the 2 chipset slots are at least as fast as the CPU slot (how else would the write speed more than double?). However, there's clearlyl a difference in pathway between my drive in slot 1 and drive in slot 3. I'll put the page file back first thing tomorrow and see what happens!

 

Cooling-wise, like most systems, what I currently have is a compromise. I use my PC for rendering in VRAY (uses CPU and GPU), photo editing, a small amount of video editing, and a fair bit of gaming. It's a fair amount of mixed use. However, the bias puts more weight on GPU than CPU in general terms. Given the heat my GPU kicks out (am considering a custom loop at the moment), it seemed to make more sense to me to not top mount my CPU cooler. As you can tell, I'm by no means an expert, and what may seem logical in my head may not be that logical.

 

I've been in front of my PC all day (14 hours now), streaming some music/videos while creating a document in word. Hardly a taxing workload. Current temps (in c):

CPU: 43
PCH: 48
PCIEx16: 45

PCIEx8 (confused - haven't got any other PCIE slots in use): 40

System 1: 35

System 2: 33

VRM Mos: 43
EC_Temp1 (thermistor under GOU vent fins): 25
EC_Temp2 (thermistor above DDR4 bank): 32

CPU is PBO sporadically to 4.45 but mostly sat at 3.9 given low load. 

So, in general use, my temps seem very reasonable. Will have to record an hour's worth of data from a hardcore render and see what happens then.

I've included a pic of my build if you have any further fan config advice? Many thanks

 

 

[Lordy1976]

Sorry, forgot to mention that the single bottom-mounted fan was changed to bias the air from the 360mm rad up through the top right exhaust fan. As you can also see, the Lian Li also has a slightly weird config, in that the air pulled throuigh the rad isn't directly pushed across the MB. I've biased more RPM to the 2 top LHS fans in an effort to pull more fresh air from the case venting across the chipset. It also pulls the heat from the GPU blower directly upwards, and there's a fair bit of space both in front and behind the GPU, so I'm HOPING that means that hot air is pulled from the front of the case and fresh air is pulled from behind the GPU across the chipset. That may or may not be the case!? I really need to spend more time recording readings from SIV to validate that theory.