When my computer breaks two things at once
Well, the liquid cooler on my desktop finally broke. This was an a question of "when" and not "if" after Seth's cooler failed in spectacular fashion last year. Although he's swapped out a couple of GPUs since, we have the exact same basic setup. He tends to stress out his PC rather more frequently than I do, so things that break on his rig are usually a good predictor of what could break on mine several months down the line. I was prepared for this in advance. Actually, I was quite excited about this prospect in advance. You see, I already knew I wanted to try the Noctua NH-D15 if I were to replace my old heat sink and also really wanted to see how it would compare to Seth's replacement liquid cooler.
My basic premise for this was that I wanted to avoid the whole prospect of my coolers' pipe's drying out over time, which I understand is an inevitability with liquid systems. Don't get me wrong, liquid systems do have great performance and I really was happy to see what the hubbub was about over the last few years, but the stress from dealing with Seth's CPU made me wonder if it was easier to just go back to a radiator-style heat sink. Also, it's a new toy and I like new toys. Okay, it's mostly about the new toy.
First though, I want to say Amazon got my cooler to me in 24 hours. This was normal Prime delivery too, on a Friday. I thank the hardworking people who made that happen, because I was terrified I would start work on Monday with my main workstation out of commission. Second of all, holy fuck this has to be the largest heat sink I've ever seen in my life. The Amazon reviews did note the size on this thing, and I spent a good hour measuring and re-measuring the clearance in my case before I ordered it, but it still just barely fits in there. I wasn't picky about about colour or disco lights. In fact, I was actively grateful it didn't come with disco lights. Bloody waste of energy that. I had a choice of single or dual fans and got the dual version. Technically, the second fan is just something you can clip on one of the other sides of the radiator and it turned out my case/memory setup had no space for the second XL fan anyway. This isn't a total loss. The NH-D15 has good backward and forward-compatibility with both Intel and AMD chips, so I can always re-use this on my next box whenever I get it. I...just have to remember to get a bigger case if I want both fans.
The whole package showed up at my house not just at record speed, but also incredibly well-packed. It markets as a premium cooler and feels premium in person. I appreciated that someone actually thought about how to minimise the cardboard you needed to keep the product from moving in transit while not compromising on its safety. It's my problem with a lot of peripherals-people get this idea that bigger box is better box. Every time we put together a new rig, it takes me a month to slowly recycle all the packaging. The actual radiator looks and feels like it was forged as one piece. Even came with a free L-shaped screwdriver that wasn't some dinky Allen key you get at IKEA. I can and will actually re-use that screwdriver for future projects because it's handy to have! As a cooler mounted at 90 degrees to your motherboard the size of (a large) grapefruit, I was also concerned this thing would be too heavy. While it does feel hefty, I noticed the thin radiator fins were surprisingly easy to bend by accident. This posed an immediate problem because one of the first things you had to do before installation was unclip the fan pre-mounted in the centre of the radiator. These clips are basically pieces of soft wiring hooked into either side of the fan and are a) super easy to bend out of shape and b) spectacularly easy to pull out of the fan by accident. I have small fingers but unclipping and reclipping the fan in place felt like I was doing the installation wearing oven mitts. I wound up bending several fins, mangling one of the clips enough I had to use pliers to re-shape it, and then mangling several more fins trying to re-mount it on the radiator.
Again, this is an XL fan with a metal clip dangling over my graphics card that I had to somehow keep from touching my graphics card. What made this process especially irksome is that installing the heat sink itself was a breeze. Noctua supplies its own high-end thermal paste with its product and the quick start guide makes it impossible to fuck up installation...except when it comes to the fan. It took several tries to prevent said clip from shorting my motherboard on startup, but I got it in. I'm sure it's staying in place primarily through magic, my installation just felt so hamfisted.
Many cursings and swearings later, I thew the power button on only to have BIOS telling me I had a CPU fan error. More cursings and swearings later, I found a note on Noctua's help section pointing out how the automatic fan controls on Supermicro motherboards can erroneously read the lower baseline RPM of its fan as a failing fan. The solution was to switch off the automatic controls in BIOS and just let the fan run at a constant speed. My motherboard is an ASUS but the principle seemed sound and more importantly, switching off the automatic control worked.
Now, I was initially a liiiiiitle bit worried about venting the heat out of my case because of just having a single fan in the middle of the two radiators, two chassis fans venting upwards from the motherboard but no added fan to help vent in the back. (Note: Liquid coolers typically consist of a radiator and a fan you attach to the back of your case.) Somewhere out there, my friend the Cabbit is probably laughing at my slightly OCD concepts of Just How Many Fans Do You Bloody Need on Your Case Before It Floats.
Okay, but how does this new toy actually perform? I admit I started up my temperature monitor and thought I broke the temperature monitor. At idle, my CPU's temperature was middling at 21C. This was on a day when my area was seeing temperatures in the mid-20s, effectively making the temperature of my CPU cooler than the ambient temperature of my study. Still deeply suspicious, I start up FFXIV and immediately walked into the latest end-game 24-man raid. My CPU temperature eventually cranked up to about 31C, then went back into the 20s and it's still doing that two days later after many, many hours of "testing". This is GREAT. Like, super awesome great. The real test is when summer rolls around and we get that two weeks of 40C weather, but so far, I have no complaints. PSA: If your study is baking at 38-40C, you probably shouldn't be in there raiding. Seriously, do yourself and your rig a favour!
At exactly the same time my CPU cooler died, I started up my PC on Friday morning and realised my second monitor was also dead. First thought was, "Oh, shit. What did I do to short my monitor?" The most parochial answer is that I didn't somehow fry my second monitor and that it died of natural causes, just at a lousy time. I enjoy the luxury of a second monitor because it helps me in my daily work. It also helps when I need to refer to strategy guides during raids and look up fish/weather/time/bait when I fishing raid, among several other things I read all at once while gaming. Mostly it's work, I swear. So I needed a replacement workhorse monitor, not a fancy monitor. And it needed to be under 23" or it wouldn't fit my desk. I spent $100 on a heat sink and $100 on a new LED monitor. Again, Amazon's amazingly hardworking people got the monitor in a day early (Saturday), which turned out to be another blessing. In the panic over fixing my heat sink, I unfortunately failed to check the back of my graphics card. I thought I had two HDMI ports, turns out I have one HDMI port and one DVI port because my GPU is old. This is the wrong time in history to buy a new graphics card. I'd love one, but supply right now involves cutting other people to get any high-end card. Off again to Amazon to buy an 18-pin DVI to HDMI adaptor. Once more, I thought I would wait till Tuesday, and the adaptor shows up on Sunday morning. I really want Amazon to pay more taxes. They clearly work people to the bone. The adaptor works fine. I now have a full gaming PC workstation again. And I look forward to being incredibly surprised by how cool my new toy is, literally.
My basic premise for this was that I wanted to avoid the whole prospect of my coolers' pipe's drying out over time, which I understand is an inevitability with liquid systems. Don't get me wrong, liquid systems do have great performance and I really was happy to see what the hubbub was about over the last few years, but the stress from dealing with Seth's CPU made me wonder if it was easier to just go back to a radiator-style heat sink. Also, it's a new toy and I like new toys. Okay, it's mostly about the new toy.
First though, I want to say Amazon got my cooler to me in 24 hours. This was normal Prime delivery too, on a Friday. I thank the hardworking people who made that happen, because I was terrified I would start work on Monday with my main workstation out of commission. Second of all, holy fuck this has to be the largest heat sink I've ever seen in my life. The Amazon reviews did note the size on this thing, and I spent a good hour measuring and re-measuring the clearance in my case before I ordered it, but it still just barely fits in there. I wasn't picky about about colour or disco lights. In fact, I was actively grateful it didn't come with disco lights. Bloody waste of energy that. I had a choice of single or dual fans and got the dual version. Technically, the second fan is just something you can clip on one of the other sides of the radiator and it turned out my case/memory setup had no space for the second XL fan anyway. This isn't a total loss. The NH-D15 has good backward and forward-compatibility with both Intel and AMD chips, so I can always re-use this on my next box whenever I get it. I...just have to remember to get a bigger case if I want both fans.
The whole package showed up at my house not just at record speed, but also incredibly well-packed. It markets as a premium cooler and feels premium in person. I appreciated that someone actually thought about how to minimise the cardboard you needed to keep the product from moving in transit while not compromising on its safety. It's my problem with a lot of peripherals-people get this idea that bigger box is better box. Every time we put together a new rig, it takes me a month to slowly recycle all the packaging. The actual radiator looks and feels like it was forged as one piece. Even came with a free L-shaped screwdriver that wasn't some dinky Allen key you get at IKEA. I can and will actually re-use that screwdriver for future projects because it's handy to have! As a cooler mounted at 90 degrees to your motherboard the size of (a large) grapefruit, I was also concerned this thing would be too heavy. While it does feel hefty, I noticed the thin radiator fins were surprisingly easy to bend by accident. This posed an immediate problem because one of the first things you had to do before installation was unclip the fan pre-mounted in the centre of the radiator. These clips are basically pieces of soft wiring hooked into either side of the fan and are a) super easy to bend out of shape and b) spectacularly easy to pull out of the fan by accident. I have small fingers but unclipping and reclipping the fan in place felt like I was doing the installation wearing oven mitts. I wound up bending several fins, mangling one of the clips enough I had to use pliers to re-shape it, and then mangling several more fins trying to re-mount it on the radiator.
Again, this is an XL fan with a metal clip dangling over my graphics card that I had to somehow keep from touching my graphics card. What made this process especially irksome is that installing the heat sink itself was a breeze. Noctua supplies its own high-end thermal paste with its product and the quick start guide makes it impossible to fuck up installation...except when it comes to the fan. It took several tries to prevent said clip from shorting my motherboard on startup, but I got it in. I'm sure it's staying in place primarily through magic, my installation just felt so hamfisted.
Many cursings and swearings later, I thew the power button on only to have BIOS telling me I had a CPU fan error. More cursings and swearings later, I found a note on Noctua's help section pointing out how the automatic fan controls on Supermicro motherboards can erroneously read the lower baseline RPM of its fan as a failing fan. The solution was to switch off the automatic controls in BIOS and just let the fan run at a constant speed. My motherboard is an ASUS but the principle seemed sound and more importantly, switching off the automatic control worked.
Now, I was initially a liiiiiitle bit worried about venting the heat out of my case because of just having a single fan in the middle of the two radiators, two chassis fans venting upwards from the motherboard but no added fan to help vent in the back. (Note: Liquid coolers typically consist of a radiator and a fan you attach to the back of your case.) Somewhere out there, my friend the Cabbit is probably laughing at my slightly OCD concepts of Just How Many Fans Do You Bloody Need on Your Case Before It Floats.
Okay, but how does this new toy actually perform? I admit I started up my temperature monitor and thought I broke the temperature monitor. At idle, my CPU's temperature was middling at 21C. This was on a day when my area was seeing temperatures in the mid-20s, effectively making the temperature of my CPU cooler than the ambient temperature of my study. Still deeply suspicious, I start up FFXIV and immediately walked into the latest end-game 24-man raid. My CPU temperature eventually cranked up to about 31C, then went back into the 20s and it's still doing that two days later after many, many hours of "testing". This is GREAT. Like, super awesome great. The real test is when summer rolls around and we get that two weeks of 40C weather, but so far, I have no complaints. PSA: If your study is baking at 38-40C, you probably shouldn't be in there raiding. Seriously, do yourself and your rig a favour!
At exactly the same time my CPU cooler died, I started up my PC on Friday morning and realised my second monitor was also dead. First thought was, "Oh, shit. What did I do to short my monitor?" The most parochial answer is that I didn't somehow fry my second monitor and that it died of natural causes, just at a lousy time. I enjoy the luxury of a second monitor because it helps me in my daily work. It also helps when I need to refer to strategy guides during raids and look up fish/weather/time/bait when I fishing raid, among several other things I read all at once while gaming. Mostly it's work, I swear. So I needed a replacement workhorse monitor, not a fancy monitor. And it needed to be under 23" or it wouldn't fit my desk. I spent $100 on a heat sink and $100 on a new LED monitor. Again, Amazon's amazingly hardworking people got the monitor in a day early (Saturday), which turned out to be another blessing. In the panic over fixing my heat sink, I unfortunately failed to check the back of my graphics card. I thought I had two HDMI ports, turns out I have one HDMI port and one DVI port because my GPU is old. This is the wrong time in history to buy a new graphics card. I'd love one, but supply right now involves cutting other people to get any high-end card. Off again to Amazon to buy an 18-pin DVI to HDMI adaptor. Once more, I thought I would wait till Tuesday, and the adaptor shows up on Sunday morning. I really want Amazon to pay more taxes. They clearly work people to the bone. The adaptor works fine. I now have a full gaming PC workstation again. And I look forward to being incredibly surprised by how cool my new toy is, literally.