Random Hardware topics

[neogunhero]

That is likely going to be a thermal pad and you don't need to replace them. They can be reused. Up to you if you want to replace it.

One thing I'll need to make sure is the thickness of the pad vs the ones I have. Mine are 1mm thick, stackable up to 2mm without performance loss. If the translucent thermal pad attached to the heatsink is any thicker (it may be from what I remember), I shouldn't replace it. Also it depends on how easy it would be to rip out the old one without leaving behind adhesive residue.

The new drive comes in today, and it had a graphene thermal spreader attached already. Using that plus the heatsink will already improve thermals as my current drive that will be replaced doesn't have the graphene spreader.



Since this is going to be a clean install, it’s time for a clean set up. I’ll be doing a very deep clean on all my components tonight. Removing keycaps and soaking them in soapy water, disinfecting all surfaces, dusting PC, all of that. I tend to keep my set up tidy, but dust build up is inevitable. It's been a while since I did such a deep cleaning, I'm strangely kind of excited to do it.

 

[Colif]

Since this is going to be a clean install, it’s time for a clean set up. I’ll be doing a very deep clean on all my components tonight. Removing keycaps and soaking them in soapy water, disinfecting all surfaces, dusting PC, all of that. I tend to keep my set up tidy, but dust build up is inevitable. It's been a while since I did such a deep cleaning, I'm strangely kind of excited to do it.

Oldest PC part I own now are my speakers. They being replaced next year so not cleaning it. Next would be monitor I guess. I keep front clean so I can see it but rear is probably dusty but entire room being taken apart in a few months so I fix that later. I can't see it
PC might need a clean, hard to see dust in a white case

 

[neogunhero]

Got the new SSD last night, put that in and got Windows 11 up and running. Fully configured how I like it. Very similar to Windows 10 in many ways, so I'm happy.

The whole process took so much longer than I had expected. I ended up removing the entire HDD hotswap bay that was preinstalled in the case. That shows how old my case is, probably a good 8 years or more. I'm having a hard time finding the exact one, I used to be able to find it on Newegg but it's not there or on Amazon anymore. I know the brand is Rosewill, but everything I can find for sale is their newer cases. eBay didn't show much luck either.

Here are some before and after-ish photos of the PC.

Spoiler: Before and After-ish

I say after-ish because I had to make a tweak. I have my M2 SATA in an enclosure, but saw the second M2 slot on the mobo and forgot why I had the enclosure. I proceeded to slot it into the mobo, but it never showed up in Windows. I checked the mobo manual, and for whatever reason, the second slot M2B does not support SATA M2, only PCIe 2.0 x4. The top slot does support SATA, but it also support PCIe 3.0 x4, which I need to get faster speeds on the main drive. That was the whole reason why I bought the SSD enclosure two years ago, I totally forgot. On the second photo right above the grey fans on the right there is a small metal tab with a hole, I just mounted the encloser in there and it works perfectly I also cleaned up the cable management more after doing that.

That HDD hotswap bay has sat there since I got this case 6-7 years ago and I just never thought to take it out. I used it in the past with a 1TB WD Black HDD which is gone now. It blocks that bottom fan, but I always had good enough temps so I never bothered. There were a good 8 screws holding it to the case, but I knew it could come out individually so I kept trying. I then screwed the SATA SSD to the bottom there by the fan. I never save benchmarks or anything so I can't compare but it will surely bring some better airflow to the whole system.

Windows 11 is working just fine, configured a lot of it myself then used some programs like Shutup10++ to disable lots of other stuff. The whole process from start to finish was about 4 hours, I was up until 2am doing this which is wild late for me these days.

 

[Zed Clampet]

How soon you forget



My next PC is likely Intel but they have to exist and be competitive to let me buy one

CEO is apparently in hot water because our president hates the fact that he's Chinese or something like that?

No, that's not it. It's because he's been talking about giving up on fabricating chips after Intel accepted $8 billion dollars to expand their fabrication business.

That dude in charge of the US isn't going to let them go anywhere. They announced yesterday that the government is acquiring 10 percent of Intel. The US wants them fabricating chips really, really badly.

And per the numbers I saw, their GPU business is actually doing okay, but they are mostly being used in laptops right now.

 

[Colif]

That was the whole reason why I bought the SSD enclosure two years ago, I totally forgot.

Maybe write a note for next time

The before image seems to be lacking a GPU so that is one improvement. (I know, just being silly)

The remaining 2 nvme slots on my board both make other parts slower if I use them, so not in a rush.

Last PC I had with CD/hdd cages is 10 years old now:
It had more than yours did, only had 1 Blue ray and 1 hdd and 1 ssd in it. Could have held more - reminds me I need to take that Blue Ray drive out before I throw it away.

It has a solid back and front, breathed through its bottom panel and exhausted through top of the case. The case was the best air cooling case on Gamers Nexus charts for about 10 years.
My current case has better cooling than it did. Took long enough to find a replacement.

Nvm, the last two cases I had both had removable hdd cages, I just forgot as they attached to back of motherboard tray. And new one had this in its bottom mesh area, I took it out to help air flow - i forgot it had a ssd tray attached to it as well

 

[neogunhero]

Maybe write a note for next time

A bit of painters tape and a Sharpie would save me 30 minutes of headache in the future.

Last PC I had with CD/hdd cages is 10 years old now:
It had more than yours did, only had 1 Blue ray and 1 hdd and 1 ssd in it. Could have held more - reminds me I need to take that Blue Ray drive out before I throw it away.

It has a solid back and front, breathed through its bottom panel and exhausted through top of the case.

Mine looks very similar. It’s definitely an old design, it’s hard to find cases close to mine these days, minus the hard drive cage. Most mid tower ATX cases these days have a shroud for the PSU, glass or acrylic sides, and generally a large improvement over more traditional designs like mine. My case looks like an evolution of the cases of the 2000s but cases these days are in a totally different league.

Mine is solid black with a front metal mesh panel. No side glass or anything so I don’t ever bother with RGB inside the case.

Again, I didn’t save benchmarks so I can’t compare, but after 3 hours of solid gaming on Saturday, my new main SSD stayed below 46c. I’ve messed about with fan curves a lot also, pushing the fans a bit harder than what I had them at in Win10. The SATA SSD I mounted towards the bottom of those intake fans stays below 30c now which is insane lol, but then again I don’t use it for much. I don’t open FL Studio or Photoshop as much these days. The top mounted M2 enclosure stays around 30-31c.

Overall I’m really happy with everything I did over the weekend. PC is clean and upgraded, staying cool, and Win11 is fully customized and configured to how I like it. This new drive is awesome also, I went ahead and put Windows on it as well as use it for my main game drive, downloading a 80GB game never dipped below 48MB/s the entire way through. Old drive would have crapped out after the first 100mb.

 

[neogunhero]

Got the new SSD last night, put that in and got Windows 11 up and running.

I forgot to mention that I did end up replacing the M2 heatsink thermal pads as well. My memory failed me, I thought it was translucent and gummy, but it was in fact average thermal pad material. However, it was dried up, starting to fall apart, and was very obviously 7 years old. It came off satisfyingly easy using a box cutter to scrape it up, but the adhesive was mostly gone at this point anyways. I replaced it with brand new Arctic TP-3 pads, as well as attached the graphene sticker directly to the SSD. Placed the heatsink on top. I’m glad that it’s staying cool after all of that.

 

[Colif]

Most cases now come in two varieties (if we talking full sized anyway)

1. Mesh front, glass side panel, mostly traditional layout
2. Fish tank with many glass sides and two compartments so that you can hide PSU and all the wires behind the motherboard.

2nd is being adjusted to be as good as 1 at cooling. So what I get next time - 5 years - is any ones guess. Glass needed holes drilled in it to let air in. Who knows what that will achieve in 5 years.

PSU shroud is normal now, in all designs.No one really wants to see the PSU so its just hidden in different places, either behind motherboard or underneath it.
Some new boards now using the PSU shroud area for more than just stuffing the cables into, such as mine and a Lian li that have fans on it to cool GPU. These have mesh sides as well. No way I could get away with negative air pressure in my case, too many gaps.

Not sure I like the 011 Dynamic look.

That case I had that I showed photos of, I knew I wanted that case years before I got it. It was a design from 2010 but I just wanted it. To be fair, most of the cases in 2015 I could find were covered in RGB and I wasn't interested in flashing lights back then. Compared to it, they were too flashy...

Where is it?
guess shot on screen is a clue

and the faint blue light.

Seems I had mistakenly thought I had a Sony 4k monitor but it was Samsung. Comparing models from 2015 seems to confirm it. Wonder why I thought it was Sony. That confused me for a while

Win11 is fully customized and configured to how I like it. This new drive is awesome also, I went ahead and put Windows on it as well as use it for my main game drive, downloading a 80GB game never dipped below 48MB/s the entire way through. Old drive would have crapped out after the first 100mb.

there is always something you forget. You may think you have everything but unless you made a list, something will be missing. Getting windows to how you want it takes time... I probably missed parts myself.

 

[neogunhero]

Most cases now come in two varieties (if we talking full sized anyway)

1. Mesh front, glass side panel, mostly traditional layout
2. Fish tank with many glass sides and two compartments so that you can hide PSU and all the wires behind the motherboard.

I'm not a big fan of either. I personally don't care to see my hardware or not. I usually have it under my desk so it's not in a spot where people can constantly see it so I don't have a need to show it off. The side panel would be cool and will allow me to actually see the lights, but not a big deal to me.

My ideal case would be a mini ATX, something small and sleek. I have no experience building in them though so it would be a huge learning process. I really love the Fractal Design Terra and the Lian Li A3 cases. The wood accents are very appealing to me, they would fit perfect with the theme we're trying to go with on the decor of our home.

PSU shroud is normal now, in all designs.No one really wants to see the PSU so its just hidden in different places, either behind motherboard or underneath it.
Some new boards now using the PSU shroud area for more than just stuffing the cables into, such as mine and a Lian li that have fans on it to cool GPU. These have mesh sides as well. No way I could get away with negative air pressure in my case, too many gaps.

Even without fans installed on the shroud, I feel that having a solid PSU shroud could help move front intake fans over the main components better. With my case, there is a lot of open space by the PSU so it moves around more than if there was a shroud right there.

there is always something you forget. You may think you have everything but unless you made a list, something will be missing. Getting windows to how you want it takes time... I probably missed parts myself.

I think I have everything done. The only thing right now is getting my browser fully configured. Drivers are all updated, most of my software downloaded, fan curves reset, can't think of anything else... something will pop into my head eventually.

 

[neogunhero]

SK hynix announces mass production of its 2Tb 3D QLC NAND — cheaper high-capacity consumer drives and 244TB enterprise SSDs incoming

SK hynix's 9th Gen 3D NAND should arrive very soon.

www.tomshardware.com

Well, darn it. I wonder how inexpensive these drives will end up being, only time will tell.

 

[Colif]

Even without fans installed on the shroud, I feel that having a solid PSU shroud could help move front intake fans over the main components better. With my case, there is a lot of open space by the PSU so it moves around more than if there was a shroud right there

That is just how old cases did it. No one thought to hide the PSU back then as why? You can't see it through the solid side panel. It was only once tempered glass sides were a thing that hiding it and cables was even a thought. Cases when my black one above was made had plexi glass windows - not that it had one. They scratched too easily and looked as cheap as they were.

Air flow was not even on list of things they thought of beyond having space for intake fans, if you lucky. Most had a stack of hdd cages at front and didn't let any air in.
One of my ancient cases tried to do both, it had a stack of hdd cages at front and behind them the intake fans

Techgage Image - SilverStone TJ09

techgage.com

That one was different, it had side vents for the front intake fans - I used that case for about 8 years,
having a good case has been a priority for me ever since getting a Lian LI case in 2005... spoiled me.

My shroud is really just a shelf with an open front, there is nothing between the front fans and the PSU, The top of the shroud isn't solid, I can either have the fan mounting brackets or replace them with a mesh bracket to fill in the gap

A 3rd fan wouldn't help at rear, its blocked by the PSU. It looks like back of gpu is dusty. Guess I fix that next time I take sides off again.
You could remove the entire shelf if you wanted, there are diagrams showing a 360mm radiator mounted there instead. and a 240 under it, but then motherboard clearance becomes a problem. and water flow issues.

There probably are cases out there still with metal side panels but you would have to search for them, as most follow trends. Or just get a black case as most of them have dark tinted glass and you can't see in anyway. Seems self defeating to me.

I don't want a shoebox PC as I like my PC running cool and cramming everything into a tiny box is just asking for heat. Even if it looks cool.

something will pop into my head eventually.

Or you will go to do something and realise you forgot to install it.
I cheated and wrote a list of the programs I had installed, and just made sure I had them.
There are some things I didn't bother with on this PC, as they still on my old one. I clearly don't need them since its 4 months since I used it.