So yesterday while playing Bioshock: Burial at Sea Ep2, my PC started acting all weird... stuttering at first so I alt-tab'ed to the desktop and was shocked to see my CPU's temp was at 98'C even though the pump on my H80i was running and the Corsair Hydro's own temperature was at like 91'C. I immediately hit the main switch on the power supply to shut everything down, thinking somehow air got into the water lines or that a driver/sensor caused the bad reading. So I re-seated and applied new AS5 to the processor, reinstalled the H80i, tested the pump with a separate 12v power supply, and when i felt everything's been checked, the thing powered on and 4 seconds later went off, then on... then off... over and over. red light next to CPU was illuminated and it wouldn't get far enough to post. So... i disconnected everything but the motherboard, RAM, GPU, and CPU... installed a Thermalright Venomous X and re-seated/new AS5 AGAIN... and still the same. NExt came changing out my Corsair HX1kw with an older PC Power & Cooling 750w... and nothing changed. Lastly I borrowed an i3-530 from a friend he keeps for testing and the damn thing powered right up. So long story short, It's time to spend some money. I'm not going to replace the 860 with a used one off ebay. I'd rather drop ~$300 or so and get a new motherboard with SATA 6, USB3.0, PCIe 3.0, and a modern processor with all the fancy new extensions. I've been a big Asus fan for years but I think it's time to change. I'm now looking at a new Asrock z87 Extreme4 ($119.99) or a z87 Extreme6 ($144.99) ATX LGA1150 motherboard and probably an Intel i5-4670k ($189.99). And as long as I buy that CPU with one of either of those motherboards (or an Asus z87-A or Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H), I'll get an additional $30 off the total. Total for the i5-4670k and Extreme4 is $279 or $300 even with the Extreme6. I thought about going with the i7-4770k but it's $269 by itself. Plus every review I've seen puts it only faster in a few benchmarks where lots of multitasking is involved. I wish Broadwell was coming sooner than 2H-2014. Waiting is not an option. What do you think of the CPU/mobo i'm looking at? Suggestions? Thanks
Seems fine to me, also a big Asus fan myself. Been using Z87-A + 4670K for a while and very happy with both! You don't necessarily need an i7-4770(K) for gaming, the 4670 is more than enough atm and probably for quite some time. If you do video encoding or 3d modeling for example, then you might get a perf boost out of HT with the i7.
^^^ Waiting till June without a desktop computer just wasn't going to happen. I ended up buying an Asrock z87 Extreme4 and an i5-4670K and almost returned it a day later due to horrible temps (~90'c+) and overclocking frustration. But I took some time to read up on Haswell to find a solution and while I have solved a few computer problems in the past with a hammer, it's the first time I actually used one to improve one. So I clamped the IHS into a vise in my garage, took a nicely squared up piece of red oak, placing it's edge against the side of the 4670k, and gave the hammer three swings popping the chip into the air and landing in a soft towel I had positioned as a backstop. Using a digital micrometer, I determined there was a rather large gap between the CPU core and the heat spreader that was almost 0.5mm. That's HUGE!! So I lapped the bottom of the IHS so the core would be in as perfect contact as I could manage. Then carefully gave a very thin layer of CooLaboratories Ultra Liquid metal (damn that was expensive), applied a bead of high-temp silicone to the edge of the IHS, and loaded the chip and heat spreader into the CPU socket where they were clamped firmly back together to dry. Results? Keep in mind, the chip was hitting ~90'c running at stock frequency (3.6ghz). Right now as I type this i'm testing my initial overclock attempt with the CPU @ 4.2ghz with 1.252v torture testing with Prime95, and RealTemp says "57'c 62'c 61'c 56'c". It's been running 100% for over an hour now. I haven't tried going any higher, but I will soon.
^ that's some heavy-duty DIY computer building Impressive temps though, however there clearly was a fault in your chip if stock temps were 90ish. There isn't supposed to be such a big of a gap between CPU and IHS, so you should have RMA'ed it anyway imo. However, this makes me really want to try out delidding myself...
Need to give Andrew an award for that DIY mod. Should take that piece of red oak and give that h80i a couple of whacks for good measure also.
Hey guy's having some issues with my setup, pc is turning off and on from power up and am not able to enter the bios so far tried to clear the cmos and swap to bios 2 and no go, everything has been running great with a mild oc of 4.4 on this 4930k which is only 4 months old, everything seems to be getting power and have tried different rams and power supply and different video cards, I hope the cpu has not been damaged some how? This has got me worried as I can't afford a replacement.. Help
[/quote] The "gap" or should I say "space between CPU core and IHS that's filled with TIM" is a very well documented fault that exists on almost all Haswell chips. Many believe it's due to not just improper tolerances between parts, but also likely that they used a thermal compound that just doesn't have the viscosity. The stuff that was on my brand new CPU was dry and chalky. http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2261855 Look up "Intel Delidding hammer" on youtube and watch the videos. It's an outstanding method and very simple. I've delidded a CPU with a razor blade and that was much more difficult and prone to error. The credit goes to the folks over at Anandtech's forums and Overclockers.net, I simply borrowed the idea and added my own slight changes. [/quote]Should take that piece of red oak and give that h80i a couple of whacks for good measure also. [/quote] Don't even think about using a soft wood like pine. The chip will cut into the end-grain of the board and could possibly damage the little components on the underside of the chip. Oak is great since its fairly hard and due to it's grain structure has a sort of springiness to it which could give a little added pop to get the adhesive to release. ... Plus I just happened to have some laying around since I do high end firearm finishing/refinishing/checkering/etc as well as antique furniture restoration. Here are some custom grips I made for my .357mag S&W 66-2. A re-checkering and oil finish on this 1926 Browning Auto-5 in 16ga. and lastly, my pride and joy... my grandfathers 1912 A.H. Fox BE grade and according to the serial number and manufacturer records, it's the 27th 16 gauge shotgun in that style made by A.H. Fox.
Okay, no wonder then Haswell CPUs have a hard time tempwise if there really is such a gap. Even a gap of .01 mm would hinder thermal conduction. That's of course where the TIM kicks in but the tighter the contact the better anyway. I'll check on that "hammer" thing, thanks for the info!
