A light in the dark (TLDR) build and a story

Timruins · January 9, 2019

This build has been a long journey that goes back about 2 years now I started out looking at used prebuilt computers hoping to upgrade from a Pentium 4HT. Yes just a few years ago my desktop was an outdated hp office computer on ddr2 running what I believe is one of the first intel CPUs to feature hyper threading.

So after some searching I managed to find a used acer prebuilt form factor, it had a I5 3330, 6gb ddr3, 1TB Western Digital Blue, windows 10 home with a bluescreen of death issue along side 5 antivirus softwares trying to run and a download more ram software trying to join the party. I scored that for $75 due to its issues, and bought it with the intention of buying a low profile gpu and making an entry-level ultra budget gaming pc.

After a few weeks of searching I found a Gigabyte Gtx 750 Oc listed for $70 so I put in a offer of $50 and got it. When I got it home and went to install it I realized it was too wide for the case that my prebuilt was in even tho it was low profile there's only enough room for a single slot card.

So following that I immediately got online and found a case that was on sale at the local Canada Computers and that I thought looked cool and had the space I needed, so I purchased the Evga DG-73 on sale for $35 + tax and put the acer into the new case with the 750.
I also immediately ordered a set of rgb fans that were on sale for around $40 seeing as the case has acrylic pannels and supports 7 fans, but only came with 2 non rgb 120mm fans so I needed to buy 5 more because reasons.

At this point I started looking into upgrading the platform, trying to find a used 3rd gen motherboard with more than 2 dims with a max ram capacity of 4gb per slot.

But after looking I realized that it would cost as much or more than buying a brand new current gen board, unless I find a sweet deal on something used or a refurbished product that's not selling above the original msrp because it's no longer in production but it still has demand most of the 3rd gen boards I found that had features I wanted were over the $120 mark had no warranty and was using the old standard of ddr3.

This is where things turn from used to new my friend who has a management position at an undisclosed electronics store, knew I was looking for computer parts to upgrade so he called me up when he found a few prebuilt pcs in the back that were slated to go on clearance.
Basically as long as the store has done above a certain amount of profit every quarter he's able to purchase items that are on final clearance at the stores purchase cost plus tax and environmental fees.

So I scored a Dell inspiron 3650 "gaming edition" (it has red trim instead of grey so it's a gaming computer) It's an i7 6700, 16gb DDR3L, AMD R9 360 2GB GDDR5, 2 TB HDD, Windows 10 home all the other pre built goodies slim optical, 5in1 reader, WiFi and bluetooth brandnew for $350 after tax and fees.

At the time a brandnew I7 6700 cpu was retailing for around $430 and is still around that price point on Amazon so I can't say I'm disappointed with the deal but it was a Dell so that has its problems, they call it a gaming desktop but aside from a red accent on the case and a very entry level discrete gpu it was not designed for gaming at all.

The small case has little to no airflow, the non certified 240w psu struggles to power the system under heavy usage and gets hot enough to cook on, they then chose to stick a ultra oem amd gpu with the smallest fan and heatsink I've ever seen on a gpu about 1 inch away from the hotplate psu. Not to mention the proprietary motherboard, PSU connections and power button pins, over all lack of expandability and that stupid DDR3L that most people have never herd of to make matters worse.

It had a horrible dell bios that allows no user adjustments or features it's all automatic there using a super stripped down H110 chipset and they have the cpu voltage locked in at 1.46V

So I was seeing thermals of 87°C on the gpu from running fire strike which is like 5 minutes of spaced out usage, and the cpu was hitting 77°C during the physics portion of the test. I then stepped up tho Aida 64 and in literally under 60 seconds spiked up to 80°C and hit 84°C when I stopped the test at a minute and a half as it was climbing quite quickly. And was to afraid to even run furmark because that might have fried something inside that hot box.. Idle temps were 35°C-40°C Remember these temperatures for later...

This in mind I decided I needed to upgrade before I cooked my processor inside the Dell inspiron easy bake oven. But I decided I might as well buy new instead of used as the cpu was new, I spent quite some time looking at the few options still available new and did some research on what was the best then started being parts.

First I picked out a motherboard that was very feature rich, compatible, decently priced and most importantly was black and not bright and in your face that what rgb fans are for the board I chose was the MSI B250 Pro Series PC Mate.

After that I found compatible ram and went with the cheapest ram that had black heat sinks and came from a known company so I got a matched 16gb kit of Corsair vengeance lpx 2400mhz.

I then ordered a new cooler as thermals were bad and can't have that so I got the newer improved coolermaster hyper 212 evo, black edition because you see where this is going by now.

And I finished up with a evga supernova 650 G3 as it is a black psu with all black modular cables, which are very stiff and hard to manage but are black.

After taxes the above 4 parts cost me $480.00

I chose these parts as I want to wait for CES 2019 before I start looking at GPUs
and we'll an ssd would also help things out I figured it wasn't a necessity to have for testing the build and making sure it works plus I already had windows on a hard drive.

So when the parts finally all arrived first I had to take the i5 system out of the Evga case, putting it in there was the first time I ever disassembled and reassembled a pc before then most I did was add ram, storage or swap expansion cards like GPUs or network cards. So disassembly was easy as I was familiar with the setup, it came out nice and easily and I mounted back in the original case it came in and set the gpu to the side.

After this I had to disassemble the Dell inspiron to get to the cpu, this is where the fun truly began. I had previously thought the system was designed horribly as I had the pannel removed to lessen the over heating issue well before diving in with a screw driver, but when it actually came to getting in there and doing anything I realized I underestimated the lack of thought put into the build.

First I removed the HDD and gpu and set them aside for later...

Then I tried unmounting the cooler without removing the mobo but the mounting screws just spun the standoffs and never came loose. So I had to remove the board to acess the cooler mount.

(On the subject of the cooler they used this ultra cheap looking all aluminum heat sink with an 80mm unbranded case fan on the top I honestly think it's smaller than a stock intel cooler, on a i7 in a case with no airflow...)

The board is around the size of a mAtx board but has the same amount of screws mounting it as a full ATX board, many of which are in the tightest spots imaginable. All of the cables are routed in such away they must be removed to lift the board out without obstruction and many are wedged in the front where the hinge of the case folds open making it near impossible to unplug without using pliers well praying you don't slip and tear the wire out or bend any near by caps or pins.

Finally I got the board out and the heat sink off to find not only was the cooler very low end but the quality control at dell is less than perfect. I lifted the heat sink off the IHS to see more thermal compound around the edge of the IHS than where it was supposed to be in the middle of the IHS atop the die. It actually looked as though the technician that assembled it drew a circle around the die so the compound mostly leaked out the sides when the cooler was tightened down. There was a ultra thin uneven layer that was filled with gaps and air pockets.

I digress tho the short end of the long story is I don't recommend the dell inspiron 3650, and unless you can get one at a very low price I'd avoid it completely as it's been designed to fail and with questionable Q.C it's possible you'll experience a failure much earlier than even dell intended.

That's my honest opinion on that when you desgin a functional vent on the front of the case thats actually cut out and has a mesh filter but desgin the chassis to have a solid steel wall completely blocking any air from entering the case directly behind the opening, you built it to over heat.

Now that I've got all that salt shook out the shaker, let's move on to the next part of the build.

After spending a good 15 minutes carefully cleaning the mess of thermal paste off the IHS and getting it as perfect as possible it was off to the races.

I socketed the CPU then after setting the cooler bracket on the rear of the socket and fastening the mounting standoffs, inserted the ram in it correct slots for daul channel because I didn't learn to build a pc from the verge. Then I put my slightly generous "P" of thermal paste after one last wipe to insure no dust or oils being on it. I then gently placed the cooler on top carefully aligning the spring tensioned screws to the standoff and started slowly tightening in a star pattern for even pressure.

It was at this point I heard a loud noise it sounded like something snapped or was aggressively forced into place, so immediately panic set in and the negative thoughts spiral in. Did I crack the motherboard, break the socket, crush the cpu ect...

Basically I thought it was game over when I finally got my hands steady enough to lift the board up and inspect it I couldn't find any damage but noticed that one of the springs wasn't properly centered and assumed maybe the loud pop was the spring tension forcing the screw to pop into place and confirmed this when I tightened the other screw that wasn't perfectly centered on the spring tho it wasn't nearly as loud when things were more tightened up.

The rest of the build went together very smoothly and there was no more moments of panic.

I cable managed the case like rats make nests, I blame cable length lack of extensions and stiff cables that won't bend. You could also call it laziness but meh it runs.

Then I plugged it in and it booted into windows after the bios ran it's setup and windows reconfigured.

While it was setting up I fixed all the issues I had with evgas case design I used black standoffs as spacers for the front pannel giving ample air flow and used fabric mesh to make a custom filter for the vented top of the case so dust can't just fall in when the systems off.

Now comes the part where you need those temperatures from earlier after the build and 24 hours to cure the thermal compound I got a max temp of 58°C on the cpu after 26 minutes of Aida 64, max temp on the gpu (the gtx 750) 62°C on stock clocks with the fan at 75% and 67°C with a 250mhz oc on the core and a 700mhz oc on memory, fans at 80-85%. Idle temps were averaging 22°C-29°C on both cpu and gpu.

The upgrade also boosted my fire strike scores by over 100 points @stock speeds and my cinebench score went up by 20 points. The new motherboard has also dropped my cpu voltage down to around 1.1v

Now I'm waiting till I have some extra money to buy a ssd then it's saving for a gpu to give the system the horse power it's capable of using.

I'm also shopping the used market for an I3 6100 rebuild the Dell, so I can sell it after fixing some of its problems. I figure the reduced tdp and the absence of turbo boost as well as less cores along with a proper thermal paste application the thermals should be manageable. I think adding in a small drive with windows and putting the R9 360 back in it would make for a more than capable 4k streaming pc for Netflix and youtube while having enough power to play most games at low to medium settings without turning into a space heater.

If you made it all the way to the end I thank you for your time and hope you enjoyed the read, I wrote this because I realized how crazy of a journey it's been. I've learned alot and come a long way, reflecting on the whole process I didn't just build a computer I built a symbol of my experiences. The all black asteic depicts the darkness that was cast on the silver linings of every good deal by all the complications that arose following each purchase leading to the need to purchase something else to make it work properly and learning first hand about compatibility. The the bright rgb fans light up the darkness when you push the power button and turn on the system that effectively has all the improvements I wish your my system had and remember why it was worth the journey.