Is this PC worth saving?

You don't need to use a CD sound cable or plug anything into the CD-IN header. Reread the user manual to your motherboard... you may need to adjust (and/or reset) a few settings in the BIOS.
 
Back from father's day party.

Good to hear the board works now OP.

As other says you need to go to your bios and change the boot order to have the CD drive boot before the hard-drives.

If not, then bash on I think F8 or F12 to load up the booting menu.

I would highly recommend you run a memtest 86+ just in case. Hopefully your memory sticks weren't damage when they weren't inserted all the way.

For your heatsink you do need thermal paste.
 
Thanks guys.

Ordering an after-market heatsink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118051

Thermal grease: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835887010

Also a SATA CD Drive.

Since I had the computer on for about 20 minutes with just the stock heat sink fan on it, could I have fried it since if there was thermal grease on it when I ordered it originally from CyberPowerPC it must have worn off by now? I don't want to buy another processor unless I need to, and how often must thermal grease be applied?
 
LearninToBuild said:
Thanks guys.

Ordering an after-market heatsink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118051

Thermal grease: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835887010

Also a SATA CD Drive.

Since I had the computer on for about 20 minutes with just the stock heat sink fan on it, could I have fried it since if there was thermal grease on it when I ordered it originally from CyberPowerPC it must have worn off by now? I don't want to buy another processor unless I need to, and how often must thermal grease be applied?
Click to expand...

Don't buy that heatsink and thermal paste. For the price, the Xigmatek HDT-S1283 is better (purchase the rentention bracket at the same time, it will save a lot of trouble)
Also, OCZ Freeze is better thermal paste, but beware, it is thick and hard to apply.
 
Get the Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283V instead. It comes with the retention bracket that you would have to pay extra for with the HDT-S1283.
 
Alright! I'm on the PC! On Windows 7 too.

I skipped the thermal grease for now, I have my heatsink on and I have a huge side fan directly on it as well and a top and back fan....

I notice my CPU cores from 43 to 51 degrees on Everest. Is this toooooo hot or what? I'm not gaming yet. The web developer at my job said thermal grease is 'recommended' but said I didn't need it...

Any benchmarks I can use to test the PC? All drivers are updated and I'm installing Guild Wars now, but things seem smooth and quick so far....
 
Good to hear things are up and running. The CPU will run without thermal compound as long as the heatsink is on it. I don't advise gaming or anything heavy tasking for the CPU though.

Before benchmarking and such I would wait till the thermal compound comes in. It will make a big difference.
 
DTN107 said:
Good to hear things are up and running. The CPU will run without thermal compound as long as the heatsink is on it. I don't advise gaming or anything heavy tasking for the CPU though.

Before benchmarking and such I would wait till the thermal compound comes in. It will make a big difference.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I've just ordered thermal paste, and the OCZ cool thick stuff. Unsure which one I'll use but figured I'd get both and ask you guys.

Here's the heat sink fan I ordered: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233029

paste: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835887010

OCZ: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835202006

What do you feel I should set up? And will it be too troublesome?
 
Did the CPU cooler come with any thermal compound? If it did, use it; it will be good enough for your needs.

You don't need to buy two different sets of thermal compound. If you must choose one, go with the OCZ Freeze. It's one of the better known brands out there.

Instructions for applying any thermal compound can be found here.
 
Just an update. Based on someone's suggestion I ordered the Dark Knight heat-sink fan, it was huge, I had to disassemble my entire motherboard simply to mount it. I applied a drop of OCZ freeze on my CPU and opted not to use the package of thermal grease the Dark Knight supplied.

After mounting the heat sink fan, I had to figure out how to install the dumb rubber screws into the fan and which way to attach it to the heat sink, long story short I finally "thought" I did it right because it all fit, connected my mobo components, even managed to get my ATX plug to fit, was all happy...

I turned it on, the white LED from the HSF worked, however after looking at Everest I was around 44 degrees still which upset me, I noticed the back of my case fan wasnt plugged in so i powered down, connected it, and when I turned on I quickly lost power which was weird. I powered on again and all my fans turned on except the HEATSINK fan didnt turn on, the white light would come on then stop after 2 secs, as if it couldnt draw power... Immediately i thought i fried my processor, for 10 minutes i tried to turn the system on and off and only my fans came on, the HSF fan would light up then turn off...

so in a panic i removed the HSF entirely and held the power button for about 15 seconds and eventually my bios screen appeared and i immediately powered down... I'm so upset and frustrated that i've spent all this time and energy and nearly $600 attempting to repair this PC and i was so close and i either fried my processor or something else happened god knows what.... Im thinking ill try a $15 ball cooler (i broke my stock one out of frustration with the damn poush pins) and if that doesnt power the system on then oh well, not buying a new processor, tired of dumping money into this PC really thinking about just ordering an Alienware or a Mac Pro...
 
I don't think you can really fry CPUs(I could be wrong). They do have thermal protection. I don't think there was any real reason to buy a new heat sink.That seemed to be just a waste of money...
Also, from what I can tell from this thread is that you are spending money needlessly instead of trying to find out the problem...and in the end you basically bought a new computer worth of parts (which was probably 100% not needed). Then you messed up putting it together. Throwing money at a PC isn't going to fix it. Google "How to build a PC" the first link that comes up: http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/step-1-materials-required/ a guide to building a PC (a little old but that's fine). After that, if your PC doesn't work, you need to actually find what is causing it to not work, not buying random stuff for no reason.
From what I can tell, you came here not knowing anything and you left here not knowing anything.
 
Joseph,
That would be pretty accurate. Your response actually inspired me to take my time, be patient, and think about the heatsink fan logically.

What I did was strip everything from the PC, used my Artic Solution cleaners to remove and purify my CPU, then I followed all the directions very very meticulously from the Xigmatek website, I re-attached the heatsink fan only this time I faced the fan a different direction so I'd have easier access to my ATX pin.

I also made sure to apply the thermal grease supplied with the Dark Knight exactly as listed and exactly the way they said to, and once I got everything in, I'm happy to report I'm typing on the system now and both my CPU temps are 27 to 33ish on Everest! The lowest I've ever seen 'em, I also played 10 minutes of WoW without locking up like on my old PC.

Here's a picture of my heatsink fan installed: http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4831/photoeuv.jpg

Why do you think I shorted the power for the fan the first time, is it because i didnt use the thermal grease and the CPU shut down to protect itself or something? I only put a tiny tiny speckle of OCZ freeze. Also i might not have installed the HSF 100% correctly, this time i plugged the rubber screws into the exact same fin or fend on both sides,and so far so good, i'm so scared to power down though and thinking it might not start up.

Thanks for all of your time and patience dealing with my noob questions.
 
Most likely, the CPU shut itself down to protect itself from overheating. I don't know how much of a "tiny tiny speckle" of OCZ Freeze that you've used, but my guess is that you've used too little.

Did you read the instructions carefully the first time that you tried to install your HSF? Patience and a little preparatory "analysis" (or, RTFM) helps a lot in that regard.

Looking back at the thread, the only recommendations that we gave you were to run the troubleshooting steps (from the troubleshooting sticky), replace the power supply, and RTFM. Did you even attempt step one, or did you simply jump ahead to two?
 
tiraides said:
Most likely, the CPU shut itself down to protect itself from overheating. I don't know how much of a "tiny tiny speckle" of OCZ Freeze that you've used, but my guess is that you've used too little.

Did you read the instructions carefully the first time that you tried to install your HSF? Patience and a little preparatory "analysis" (or, RTFM) helps a lot in that regard.

Looking back at the thread, the only recommendations that we gave you were to run the troubleshooting steps (from the troubleshooting sticky), replace the power supply, and RTFM. Did you even attempt step one, or did you simply jump ahead to two?
Click to expand...
I never attempted step one but I did order new Corsair ram that a gentleman here suggested. I ordered 4 things people here suggested, 5 if you count my grease and ocz freeze, so I've definitely not been tuning you guys out but I guess I wasn't as concise as I could've been. part of it was wanting to move to a new case and replace the poorly ventilated junk CyberPowerPC gave me, plus that thing locked up all the time.

I have 4GB of new RAM, a new mobo, new PSU, new case, new heatsink fan, the only thing i kept was GPU, CPU, HD, even ordered a new CD drive.

All together I feel I've learned to "RTFM" but I am just a posting forum junkie and a lot of the stuff you guys said was more insightful than the black and white manual.
 
You need to slow down and make sure that you know what you're doing next time. Even if that means taking a "break" from this forum just to read a few manuals and/or guides.

The reason why several of us told you to run those troubleshooting steps was to narrow down your particular problem. In reality, the power supply swap was probably the only thing that you needed, but that was so you wouldn't ruin your computer any further in the long run.
 
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Just played some Crysis for thirty minutes, only setting I adjusted was resolution 1680x1050. I also clicked scan hardware for optimal settings but didn't see what that had adjusted. Wasn't sure if I could check the FPS in game without having a prog like Fraps, but it ran smoothly to my eye.

I alt tabbed and checked everest and my CPU temps seemed normal, high 30s or so, didnt really stare, saw my GPU went to about 60 degrees which is about 15 degrees higher than normal, but noticed no performance issues from my time playing.
 
I think this is why people suggest having someone who has built a PC before assist on the first build, eh? I am glad things seem to be working out for you OP. I really don't know if it is possible to overheat a processor anymore, except possibly if there was some short that was allowing power to flow to the CPU but not to the temp kill switch. If you look in the BIOS there should be a place where you can adjust that temperature. Since even the lowest setting is hotter than mine ever gets I just have it set to that. I remember my first computer I was having problems with it overheating so I bought a new heatsink. I installed it and it powered up fine, but when I was checking temperatures they had dropped 5 degrees at the most. Then I remembered I'd forgotten to apply the thermal paste; I was pretty amazed how big of a difference that made.

I think what tiraides was trying to say isn't that you didn't listen, but that you sort of listened selectively. If the problem was just your PSU (which seems the most likely culprit) and you had run tests that people were recommending you could well have saved a hundred bucks.

This might be a noob question of me, but are those temps in F or C? Because 30 degrees seems low in F for a CPU but 45 and 60 seem very hot in C for a GPU.
 
I believe that everything is in Celsius. Though 45C-60C is pretty hot for the GPU, those temps are within the "safe range" of most video cards.

In regards to the OP, however, you were right the first time: he made his own decisions without doing his homework or consulting others beforehand. Had he simply tried to troubleshoot his system, like we told him to, all that he really had to replace was the power supply, if not the motherboard (as well).
 
Jospeh said:
60C is not hot for a GPU. They are meant to run hot.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks for the clarification Joseph. I mean I've got a big fan on the side of my case, the card dynamically cools with its own fan, fan from the top, back etc, I really wouldnt know how to significantly improve ventilation any more for it, it's definitely got a hell of a lot more air than my old case. My cable mgmt probably could be better but now that everything is running okay I really don't want to open the case unless I absolutely have to. Main thing is no wires are in the way of fans so I'm kinda just letting things be and checking out the temps and performance.
 
One trick I've heard for checking ventilation is to use something like smoke..not thick smoke...just something you can see to see how the air is flowing. A lot of times it seems like it would be good but you don't have equal intake vs output so the air either just sits for the most part or doesn't circulate correctly.

As I said it was a kinda noob question. I did google first and was seeing things around 30-50 idle to load. I never really monitored GPU temp before, except by feel. If it burns my hand I figure that is probably too hot.
 
Under 85c is generally fine for a GPU. They're designed to run very hot. Anything over that, I'd be worried, though.
 
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