Motherboard For The Poor

[Slayer 190]

For me the water cooler is just a means to remove excess heat from the case since the GPU draws it's air from within the case and I don't want a bunch of noisy fans to ventilate the case.

[martin-w 3,235]

For me the water cooler is just a means to remove excess heat from the case since the GPU draws it's air from within the case and I don't want a bunch of noisy fans to ventilate the case.

Depends how your CPU AIO cooler is orientated. If it's set up to draw cool air in, through the rad, it then ends up in the case. So all that warm rad air inside your case, no different to an air cooler. Incidentally, this is how Corsair and most AIO cooler manufacturers suggest mounting it, for lowest CPU temp.

 

On the other hand, if the AIO cooler it set up to draw air into the rad from inside the case, then yes it's exhausting that heat. However... it's also cooling the rad and thus the CPU with warm case air, thus compromising CPU cooling. In other words, all that graphics card, VRM and PSU heat is attempting to cool your rad. Thus higher CPU temp.

 

Any kind of cooling is always a compromise.

 

Case fans aren't an issue. I have no less than 5 120 fans cooling my Lian Li X510. They never have to run at full whack, at low loads they barely spin, and in the sim or games just above half speed. It would on'y be during a heavy stress test that I have them configured to run at higher RPM. Quietest system I've ever owned... and yes, without an AIO water cooler and with the NH-D15S.

Nobody NEEDS a bunch of noisy case fans. Almost all of us over cool our PC's. My old, overclocked 3770K system had just TWO 120mm case fans. Cool enough and stable. With an NH-D14 air cooler!

 

Edit: Forgot to mention... yes, an air cooler like the D15, does indeed increase enclosure temp to a degree, but not as much as you think. The D15 is a matter of an inch or so away from the rear case fan. The cooler fan/fans line up with the rear case fan. The majority of the warm cooler air is immediately vented by the rear fan. If I measure the temperature of the air venting from my rear enclosure fan, it's evident that the majority of the CPU heat is vented.

 

The D14/15/15S also has an oversized 150mm fan, designed to blow cool air across the motherboard for VRM cooling.

 

I'm babbling on a bit too much, but something else to consider... re graphics card cooling. If you have a reference design, or what's now referred to as a founders edition, then the card will vent most of the heat outside the case. On the other hand if you have a non-reference design, most of the heat ends up in the case anyway, with very little vented. Thus, with a non reference design the region around the card is very warm, with the card often ingesting it's own warm air anyway. So your concerns re air coolers warming the inside of the case and being ingested by the graphics card cooler are mute.

[dazz 69]

Now I am having trouble booting/restarting. Restart from Windows10 and fans start, LAN port lights on, but no restart. tried various things including clear ROM and onboard reset. Had to remove power then came up with the setup screen. There I found the SATA protocol was not IDE. Setting to that and it came up. All ok then slight screen flicker and my SSD "disappeared". Power off, setup, showed ACHI not IDE for disks. SATA to IDE and then ok. "Browser" load at occurrence. SSD is on ok right now.

 

New motherboard is next step. I could get a bios chip and a battery but financial stuff on PC. so reliability needed. Will get same one. Can't afford new Skylake CPU and the old i2550K gives me proper FPS with reasonable settings.

 

Thanks for help

 

Did you install Windows with the mobo set to IDE? Because it looks to me like that's what causing your headaches. If that's the case you can fix the problem with this, and then you should be able to use your SSD at it's full capabilities

 

http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2010/05/25/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7/

[martin-w 3,235]

Good suggestion from Dazz.

 

Not sure about AS Rock boards, but my Asus Z170 BIOS set AHCI automatically.

[martin-w 3,235]

If it's a Samsung drive then Magician software will display if it's set to AHCI. If not, look in Device Manager.