Please help my dying PC...
 

My PC (with Ubuntu-Linux 64bit) is in pharmacologic coma since yesterday.

ANTEFACTS:
----------
1) A couple of years ago I bought a new PC, having the following parts:
- ASUS P7P55D DeLuxe mobo (the one without the video card on board)
- Intel Corei5-750 @2.66 MHz processor with standard heatsink (the vendor assured me it was more than enough)
- Nvidia GTX 275 video board
- 2x4GB RAM (IIRC they were 1066 dual channel)
- A 650W PSU
- One 5" internal fan positioned to push hot air outside the case.
- A big tower metallic case.

2) Last year I lost my PSU, and installed a 1000W gold Corsair.
- Since then, the case has been kept open to facilitate the air cooling.

3) Finally I installed a Nvidia GTX 580, keeping the GTX 275 as both crunching and display device.

USE:
----
My box works on different projects.
I sometimes use Nvidia boards for more than one task at the same time.
I use from 2 to 6 concurrent tasks on the CPU.

TROUBLESHOOTING:
----------------
- With both PSUs, I heard all the fans turn heavily during the startup.
- The fans became quiet after the loading of the video cards' BIOS.
- The GPUs ran at full load, and their fans were quite loud.
- If I tried a restart of the PC soon after having stopped the GPUs, the PC did the BIOS check (fans loud) and then stopped before the Mobo BIOS startup.
- After 20-30 minutes of cooliing down, the PC was ready to restart.
- When I launch 2 tasks of pfgw, the timing increase up to 30% in 2-3 minutes.

ACTUAL BEHAVIOR:
----------------
- The PC turns down automatically after few minutes of activity, but the CPU fan keeps turning slowly.

PROGNOSIS:
----------
- It seems that the CPU is overheating, maybe the contact silicon paste dried out.
- I am afraid that some condensers on the mobo blew out, vanifying the CPU substitution.
- I hope that no damage has been done to the GPUs...

Medical consultation is required :help:

Luigi

I would strip it down by disconnecting the disks and a GPU. Anyway, you should install some sensors and watch you CPU temperatures and CPU fan speeds. Your hunch about the thermal paste seems good. Another possibility is the fan is clogged with something.

[QUOTE=paulunderwood;343134]I would strip it down by disconnecting the disks and a GPU. Anyway, you should install some sensors and watch you CPU temperatures and CPU fan speeds. Your hunch about the thermal paste seems good. Another possibility is the fan is clogged with something.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Paul. :smile:

Maybe I should have asked in the Hardware section...

Luigi

I second Paul's suggestions. I would note that stock coolers are minimally adequate for the kind of loads you describe. Keeping the fins free of obstruction is vital. The cooler should be vacuumed or blown out regularly. Re-applying the thermal compound is also an excellent idea. If you are going to do that it is a good time to give the cooler fins and fan a special cleaning. Be sure to clean the CPU and contact plate of the cooler thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol. Be careful not to leave any lint or other foreign material on the surfaces.

Does the CPU fan ever speed up under load? If not, look for BIOS settings which would affect this. There are numerous utilities which will report temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds. Asus usually provides something in this line. Some free possibilities-[INDENT]CPUID HWMonitor
HWiNFO
Speedfan
[/INDENT]

[QUOTE=kladner;343152]I second Paul's suggestions. I would note that stock coolers are minimally adequate for the kind of loads you describe. Keeping the fins free of obstruction is vital. The cooler should be vacuumed or blown out regularly. Re-applying the thermal compound is also an excellent idea. If you are going to do that it is a good time to give the cooler fins and fan a special cleaning. Be sure to clean the CPU and contact plate of the cooler thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol. Be careful not to leave any lint or other foreign material on the surfaces.

Does the CPU fan ever speed up under load? If not, look for BIOS settings which would affect this. There are numerous utilities which will report temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds. Asus usually provides something in this line. Some free possibilities-[INDENT]CPUID HWMonitor
HWiNFO
Speedfan
[/INDENT][/QUOTE]

[quote]... Ubuntu-Linux....[/quote]

Also, I have a hunch it is the motherboard, but it may very possibly be the CPU overheating.

[QUOTE=kracker;343156]Also, I have a hunch it is the motherboard, but it may very possibly be the CPU overheating.[/QUOTE]

Thank you guys,,, :smile:

Actually the PC is running at idle power (just downloading some torrents and reading the forum) and seems stable. I am not, as you surpass me on the credit page :glare::bangheadonwall: , but what really matters here is the PC and the forum...

I will do a general cleanup during the weekend, and test the CPU with increasing work.
Finally, I'll free the power of the GPUs (I am 97% done on a huge Fermat range, N=38, but I'll take a break until Friday evening).

Maybe cleaning and a new heatsink will do. I will keep you informed.

My computer room is ghostly silent tonight...

BTW, are there CPU cooler for my i5 that may be reused for a Haswell?... :anurag:

Thanks again...

Luigi

[QUOTE=ET_;343159]
BTW, are there CPU cooler for my i5 that may be reused for a Haswell?... [/QUOTE]

IIRC, Intel didn't change the mounting specs from socket 1155, so all SandyBridge/IvyBridge coolers will fit socket 1150 Haswell.

At the very reasonable end of aftermarket coolers is the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo. In the States you can get it for as little as $20-30. I don't know about availability in Europe. It is certainly a step up in capacity from most stock coolers.

Yesterday I let my torrents run, and started mmff.exe on the GTX 580.
The PC is still on, so most likely the problem is a overheating of the CPU.

@sdbardwick:
AFAIK, my i5-750 is not a SB... anyway, it's a LGA1156, supported by Cooler Master 212.

@klander:
From Internet I see that:
- Hyper 212 Evo supports LGA 2011 / 1366 / 1156 / 1155 / 775.
- Haswell has a new socket called LGA 1150
- But Hyper 212 EVO also supports Intel Core™ i7 Extreme / Core™ i7 / Core™ i5 / Core™ i3 / Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Quad / Core™2 Duo / Pentium / Celeron.

I'm puzzled...

Luigi

Someone needs to do a mock "Help a dying PC" advert.

Not that suffering children is funny or anything, but the title of this thread made me lol.

[QUOTE=ET_;343240]Yesterday I let my torrents run, and started mmff.exe on the GTX 580.
The PC is still on, so most likely the problem is a overheating of the CPU.

@sdbardwick:
AFAIK, my i5-750 is not a SB... anyway, it's a LGA1156, supported by Cooler Master 212.

@klander:
From Internet I see that:
- Hyper 212 Evo supports LGA 2011 / 1366 / 1156 / 1155 / 775.
- Haswell has a new socket called LGA 1150
- But Hyper 212 EVO also supports Intel Core™ i7 Extreme / Core™ i7 / Core™ i5 / Core™ i3 / Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Quad / Core™2 Duo / Pentium / Celeron.

I'm puzzled...

Luigi[/QUOTE]

I guess cooler advertising has not caught up with the latest. However, from Wikipedia:

[QUOTE][B]LGA 1150[/B],[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1150#cite_note-1"][1][/URL] also called Socket H3, is an [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel"]Intel[/URL] [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor"]microprocessor[/URL] compatible [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_socket"]socket[/URL] which supports the Intel [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_%28microarchitecture%29"]Haswell[/URL] microprocessor and its future successor, [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadwell_%28microarchitecture%29"]Broadwell[/URL][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1150#cite_note-2"][2][/URL].
LGA 1150 is designed as a replacement for the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1155"]LGA 1155[/URL] (known as [I]Socket H2[/I]). LGA 1150 has 1150 protruding pins to make contact with the pads on the processor. Based on the supposed leak of an Intel document, cooling systems for [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1155"]LGA 1155[/URL] and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1156"]LGA 1156[/URL] sockets are compatible with LGA 1150, due to them having the same distance of 75 mm between each screw hole, however Intel has not confirmed this,[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1150#cite_note-3"][3][/URL] but the information has been confirmed by cooling solutions OEMs.[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1150#cite_note-4"][4][/URL]
[/QUOTE]

However, footnote #4 yields this info-
[QUOTE]Noctua has recently announced that the company is providing free mounting kits to owners of existing coolers to make them compatible with Intel's latest LGA 1150 (Haswell) motherboards. [/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Noctua-Offers-Free-LGA-1150-Haswell-Mounting-Kit-Upgrade-Older-Heatsinks[/url]

This rather implies some sort of difference between LGA 1150 and its predecessors.

Here is the "Contact Us" link to the Cooler Master online store-
[url]http://www.cmstore-usa.com/contact-us/[/url]
However, the one time I wrote to them they took forever to respond.

[QUOTE=kladner;343263]I guess cooler advertising has not caught up with the latest. However, from Wikipedia:



However, footnote #4 yields this info-

[url]http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Noctua-Offers-Free-LGA-1150-Haswell-Mounting-Kit-Upgrade-Older-Heatsinks[/url]

This rather implies some sort of difference between LGA 1150 and its predecessors.

Here is the "Contact Us" link to the Cooler Master online store-
[url]http://www.cmstore-usa.com/contact-us/[/url]
However, the one time I wrote to them they took forever to respond.[/QUOTE]

Thank you! :bow:

The contact line was actually offline, so I sent them a message.

Sadly, their products' download directory was empty, the Air Cooling download page was empty, no information available.

Checking the forum... Empty (the page was the copy of their home).

Stunning, deafening silence in their site...

Anyway, from a different forum I got this:

[code]
Because the LGA 1150 socket keeps the same mounting hole spacing as the current
LGA 1156 and LGA 1155 sockets, many newer Noctua cooler will not need the
mounting kit upgrade, and can simply be installed into the Haswell machine as is.
In other words, if the heatsink worked with your Lynnfield, Sandy Bridge, or
Ivy Bridge-based system, it will work in a Haswell system as well. According
to Noctua, the following coolers are already compatible with Haswell
[/code]

Thanks Klander.

[QUOTE= Michiel (Cooler Master)]

[code]
Jun 14 12:44 am (PDT)

Dear Mr./Ms,

Thank you for your inquiry.
Yes the Hyper 212 EVO is compatible with the Haswell CPU.
The Haswell CPU has socket 1150 and all 1155 CPU coolers
are compatible with socket 1150 because these have
the same dimensions.

Kind regards,

Michiel Bos
[/code]

[/QUOTE]

:smile: :et_:

Excellent! :tu:

Today I tried to set the system up again.

Unmounted the GPUs, the motherboard, got rid of all the accumulated dust, polished the back of the GPUs with a cotton swab (well, ok, at least 10 of them), mounted the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo, and applied the thermal compound, remounted the whole wworkstation and, hey, everything is working fine and at a double speed!

Thanks to everyone who helped me with messages and hints! :bow:

Luigi

:et_: