CoreBB

SlyLoK posted:

I may have to RMA the HDD ( WD Caviar Black ).. Started grinding last night and for a second I thought someone put on some coffee ( had my headphones on ) but it was the HDD. I have a friend that also had the same HDD and he mentioned that the blacks are more noisy than other HDDs. But to me this was more than just normal thrashing.. It sounded bad to me.

I used WD HDD test and HDD sentinel and both say the drive is fine ( whatever that means at this point ).

Think I will give it a few more days before deciding what to do as I dont have anything on the PC yet other than a few games.

As far as the CPUs temp goes.. I just used the paste that came pre applied. I will get around to putting some AS5 on there sooner or later which should drop the temps a few more Cs.

The video card went from idle of ~55c to 68c ( 60c at 50% fan speed ) so I am going to pick up some MX2 to put on the gpu for sure. Also might look into an after market cooler for both the cpu and gpu ( especially the gpu ).

Those GPU temps are not normal for your card. They are acceptable and you won't damage anything (yet), but they are most definitely not normal. With that fan speed you should be in the 30s or 40s. Hell, you should be there anyway!

What is your air flow set up like in your case? Is everything nice and tidy in there? The usual rule of thumb I follow, after researching it myself ages ago, is 2/2. One front intake, one side intake, one top exhaust, one rear exhaust. I also agree with what Ravyn said, don't screw with the stock cooler if you can help it. Honestly, it sounds like it could be an airflow problem.

The case is a mid tower but I did a good job keeping it tidy ( bought a modular PSU for that very reason ) so the airflow is good.

It seems this graphics card has a mind of its own.. Not 5 minutes after I posted the temps it dropped down to 47c at 50% fan and now this morning its at 47c at 20% autofan. Under load playing Dirt 3 the temp gets up around 77-81c with 48% fan but its really loud.

Ravynmagi posted:

CPU at 57C under Prime95 is a great temp. I see no reason to pull of the heatsink and change paste for that. Prime95 raises the temp more than gaming or normal usage would. As long as you are under 70C, it's real good.

GPU idle temp really doesn't provide any useful information.

Assuming there isn't a problem with how the heatsink is mounted, I really don't think changing your GPU paste is going to make any difference at all. And it's just a big hassle and you could damage the thermal pads on the memory if you aren't careful. Also the screws on the 6950 heatsink are pretty fragile, if you must, be real careful when screwing the heatsink back on.

If you think it's too loud or hot, you'll probably just need to get an aftermarket cooler for it instead.

Many times there is to much paste on the GPU and changing it can help a little. But the fan is really loud so changing it would be worth it anyway.