PC air cooling advice, pls

[nilobject]

Hi,

I have my brothers old machine. I turned it into a hackintosh to do work, but i have win10pro64 installed(not activated) for gaming, on a separate 500gb samsung evo 860 ssd.

Processor: Intel Core i7 860@2.8GHz

RAM: 16GB

GPU: gigabyte nvidia geforce GTX 260

board: GA-P55-UD4P (not sure which revision, BIOS updated to latest)

 

So, it's summer now and the currrent temp at 1am is 22 degrees C(feels like 28), 78% humidity, no wind. And the lights in my room generate too much heat.

When I boot into macOSX, temperatures stay about 50-60 degrees on the CPU and GPU(nb. I am using generic nvidia drivers on the mac, so not utilising the whole processor).

When I boot into windows, it's 60-70 degrees.

Now, I know those temps are acceptable, but I get lag and stuttering in games on windows, but not the mac.

The case is also under a desk with very minimal air flow and no air conditioning.

 

Can I get some suggestions on how to see if i can improve those temps? Or other things I should look into about the lag?

Thankyou very much!

Merry festag!

Edited December 11, 2018 by nilobject
correct motherboard

[LukeSavenije]

hallo (Ich bin keine Deutscher)

what case do you use? and the cooler? does everything work?

[nilobject]

Ha, I'm not german either.

I have no idea how to find out what kind of case it is. It is black, stands upright, has a vent on the top, rear, with a fan blowing up, a vent on the back, top, with a fan blowing out, and a vent on the side, rear bottom, with no fan.

CPU cooler is an intel e41759-002(i've heard stock intel coolers don't cut it, is that right?)

PSU is an Antec something.

There are also 2 ssd's(mac and windows system), a WD 2, 3, 5 and 10gb, mechanical drive(the mechanicals are formatted for mac, but windows still detects and spins them up). The drives now are between 32 and 28 degrees.

Everything is working as I'd expect it to. Just get weird lag(mainly with online games, but I get 56 down, 3.8 up), and artifacting and missing textures in games like subnautica. 

 

ps. i took the side cover off to see what cpu cooler it was and then noticed the temps drop to 40. I'm thinking I have too much stuff in the box, bad cable management, etc

[VIVO-US]

Are those temperatures when the PC is at idle, or is that when it's under load?  Also, do you have a photo of the PC you can upload?  That might help us figure something out for you.

[nilobject]

That is idle with chrome open with 7 tabs doing nothing.

sorry the photos are big.

[VIVO-US]

Ah, the good ol' Antec 300!  This was essentially the value version of the 900, which was pretty revolutionary in the day.

 

First thing you need to do is clean out all the dust.  Compressed air works well for this, and definitely don't use a vacuum cleaner.

 

For additional airflow through the case, you can tie some cables together and to the unused holes of the HDD rails.  Two additional 120mm intake fans can also be installed in the front.

 

For the CPU, replace the Intel thing with a decent tower cooler that's LGA 1156 compatible.  The Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO is a cheap option which you can often find for around $20.  It's not the favorite of many of the builders around here, but it gets the job done a lot better than the Intel cooler.

[LukeSavenije]

6 minutes ago, VIVO-US said:

Ah, the good ol' Antec 300!  This was essentially the value version of the 900, which was pretty revolutionary in the day.

 

First thing you need to do is clean out all the dust.  Compressed air works well for this, and definitely don't use a vacuum cleaner.

 

For additional airflow through the case, you can tie some cables together and to the unused holes of the HDD rails.  Two additional 120mm intake fans can also be installed in the front.

 

For the CPU, replace the Intel thing with a decent tower cooler that's LGA 1156 compatible.  The Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO is a cheap option which you can often find for around $20.  It's not the favorite of many of the builders around here, but it gets the job done a lot better than the Intel cooler.

well, funny to see a industry affiliate that has nothing to do with this here.

 

but to get back to topic, I've done it with a vacuum cleaner. compressed air is way better to use imo. you could hide some cables in the 5,25 bay, tied with a ziptie for example. those should improve temps by much on it's own. if it's still too high for your feeling, you can get a aftermarket cooler

[nilobject]

awesome reply. thankyou!

 

1. How were you able to tell which PSU model it is? Colour me impressed.

2. When I touch the dust on top of the PSU, it feels sticky and doesn't want to come off easily. Will compressed air deal with that?

3. Some of the cables mystify me. Can you tell if all of them are necessary and are in the correct place? And where would I plug in the additional fans?

4. Great advice. I will source that cooler. edit: i can't find the 212 EVO, is the 212X ok? or something else at my supplier https://www.umart.com.au

[VIVO-US]

I've been messing around with PC building for a long time now, and remember the Antec 300, 900 and 1200 case designs pretty well, so I recognized it fairly quickly.  

 

If the dust is sticky, you might have to disassemble the PC (at least partially) and clean it up with a solvent like isopropyl alcohol.

 

I see some unused 4-pin connectors, like the one near the bottom directly in front of the PSU.  That can be used to power a couple more fans if needed.  Everything else is plugged in correctly as far as I can tell.

 

The 212X is kind of over-priced.  I see the store also has the T4, which is basically the same as the 212 EVO. https://www.umart.com.au/CoolerMaster-RR-T4-18PK-R1-Hyper-T4-Universal-CPU-Cooler_22938G.html

 

LukeSavenije, I figure I might as well help as long as I'm here.

[nilobject]

Thanks both you guys for the assistance.

Should I get those magnetic dust covers and put them over the vents?