- Jan 2, 2012
- 5
- 0
- 18,510
Need help with my new PC, or a nudge in a right direction - I am a total dunce when it comes to anything technical, so please bear with me.
I am a 3D artist and an illustrator, with very little knowledge of what goes on under the bonnet, so to speak. I was making the best of what I could with my old, ropey cantankerous WinXP-brained AMD Phenom. It was slow, bad-tempered, next-to no RAM, run hot even with all the fans roaring like a jet engine on an Airbus 330 about to take off - but it was simple, and within limits, would do the job - eventually.
Not having the budget to buy new outright and not being able to get the old boy to co-operate with a piece-meal upgrade, when my nephew's neighbour asked if we could sell his one-year old super-duper i7 3770K-all- the-bells-and-whistles PC for him on ebay because he and his wife were emigrating, I couldn't believe my luck. The PC was hardly ever used , and only for occasional gaming (the guy moved on to Mac soon after he bought the machine), and it was absolutely immaculate. No hard drive, but it posted OK when testing at the guy's place.
I only managed to get the operating system a few days ago (sadly Win7 doesn't come cheap), and started my new PC.
And then noticed just the idling temps are hovering at 41 C, full 12 degrees higher than my old ropey overheating Phenom pain in the proverbial posterior. Now the panic set in. I was over the Moon to get this PC thinking I'd be finally able to whizz though the LuxRender and Vray with ease - and it seems I got a very expensive way to heat up my livingroom instead. I dare not trying a test render - if this is idle temp at the cool 18 degrees ambient of my living room, I dread what would few hours hours of Vray at the high setting or a high-rez Luxrender 3000-plus s/pxl do to it. (And I have yet to get an affordable but workable GPU)
I have no idea what to do. I don't care for overclocking and whatnots, all I want it to work at a stock settings and at the sensible, safe temperature. I looked for an answer all over the net, but the techies in general might as well talk different language, and even when I think I understand what they say - it scares the living daylights out of me - delidding 'n'stuff? I cannot even tell if the processor has been overclocked or not, or how to fiddle with the voltage - just the mobo console on its own appears to have more options and this and that than what i can cope with. In other words, if there's a way to 'set it up', undervolt it or whatever else the techies advise, I am totally clueless as to how to, and where.
Water-cooling is out of my budget. The PC case has two massive case fans at the front, one at the back, Intel's own stock cooler (yes, I know, by now I've read all about it), its bottom-mounted PSU has another two, everything seemingly working without a glitch. Mesh everywhere, well aired and ample room in the roomy , well-ventilated case with open slots and mesh positioned in what seems to be the correct places.
New Coolermaster Hyper EVO 212 has been ordered as an emergency remedy, but I am worried sick now. I cannot buy another PC, this was it, the chap has moved abroad, I cannot ask him for my money back, and all I can see now on the net is the reviews how Ivy Bridge runs hot and has issues (I wish I saw those articles before I got the PC, but that's the deed done now - I'm beginning to think that passing on a brand new FX-6300 for the same amount of money this cost me might have not been such a good idea after all).
Have I bought myself a can of worms? Is there a simple, economical way of getting this baby to play nicely (and cool)? What can be done without throwing more of my limited resources into this or that cooling/tweaking whatchamacallits?
Many thanks in advance for any help and advice.
i7-3770K
GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H
Corsair Vengeance 8 GB RAM
I am a 3D artist and an illustrator, with very little knowledge of what goes on under the bonnet, so to speak. I was making the best of what I could with my old, ropey cantankerous WinXP-brained AMD Phenom. It was slow, bad-tempered, next-to no RAM, run hot even with all the fans roaring like a jet engine on an Airbus 330 about to take off - but it was simple, and within limits, would do the job - eventually.
Not having the budget to buy new outright and not being able to get the old boy to co-operate with a piece-meal upgrade, when my nephew's neighbour asked if we could sell his one-year old super-duper i7 3770K-all- the-bells-and-whistles PC for him on ebay because he and his wife were emigrating, I couldn't believe my luck. The PC was hardly ever used , and only for occasional gaming (the guy moved on to Mac soon after he bought the machine), and it was absolutely immaculate. No hard drive, but it posted OK when testing at the guy's place.
I only managed to get the operating system a few days ago (sadly Win7 doesn't come cheap), and started my new PC.
And then noticed just the idling temps are hovering at 41 C, full 12 degrees higher than my old ropey overheating Phenom pain in the proverbial posterior. Now the panic set in. I was over the Moon to get this PC thinking I'd be finally able to whizz though the LuxRender and Vray with ease - and it seems I got a very expensive way to heat up my livingroom instead. I dare not trying a test render - if this is idle temp at the cool 18 degrees ambient of my living room, I dread what would few hours hours of Vray at the high setting or a high-rez Luxrender 3000-plus s/pxl do to it. (And I have yet to get an affordable but workable GPU)
I have no idea what to do. I don't care for overclocking and whatnots, all I want it to work at a stock settings and at the sensible, safe temperature. I looked for an answer all over the net, but the techies in general might as well talk different language, and even when I think I understand what they say - it scares the living daylights out of me - delidding 'n'stuff? I cannot even tell if the processor has been overclocked or not, or how to fiddle with the voltage - just the mobo console on its own appears to have more options and this and that than what i can cope with. In other words, if there's a way to 'set it up', undervolt it or whatever else the techies advise, I am totally clueless as to how to, and where.
Water-cooling is out of my budget. The PC case has two massive case fans at the front, one at the back, Intel's own stock cooler (yes, I know, by now I've read all about it), its bottom-mounted PSU has another two, everything seemingly working without a glitch. Mesh everywhere, well aired and ample room in the roomy , well-ventilated case with open slots and mesh positioned in what seems to be the correct places.
New Coolermaster Hyper EVO 212 has been ordered as an emergency remedy, but I am worried sick now. I cannot buy another PC, this was it, the chap has moved abroad, I cannot ask him for my money back, and all I can see now on the net is the reviews how Ivy Bridge runs hot and has issues (I wish I saw those articles before I got the PC, but that's the deed done now - I'm beginning to think that passing on a brand new FX-6300 for the same amount of money this cost me might have not been such a good idea after all).
Have I bought myself a can of worms? Is there a simple, economical way of getting this baby to play nicely (and cool)? What can be done without throwing more of my limited resources into this or that cooling/tweaking whatchamacallits?
Many thanks in advance for any help and advice.
i7-3770K
GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H
Corsair Vengeance 8 GB RAM
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