help me not melt my new A8N32

Hi folks, appreciate all the cool and very helpful guides in the sticky deprtment.

I have now, in transit an A8N32-SLI with Athlon X2 4400+, Corsair TWINX-3500LL (2gig) 2x7800GT, 2xWD740GD, X-Fi Platinum, DVD-R (16x) and all powered by an OCZ 520ADJ SLI psu. case likely to be a tj07 with 2x120mm intake hd fans (side), 2x92mm intake rear and 2x120mm exhaust (top) case interior .

My question: If I assemble all this togeather correctly with stock cooling and hit the power button, what shall become of me and my board? I have built systems before (less high-end) and was not completely worried until Kyle posted that his A8N32 got fried thanks to insufficient cooling for the system he built (which has 7 hard drives or so).

So what should I watch out for? Is it really a concern that i'll fry something with my setup and stock cooling? I'm not planning to overclock. I will be gamming heavily and running cpu intensive tasks in matlab.

So to round up my concerns
* Is stock cooling enough in this senario?
* What should I lookout for as far as dangerous temps etc
* What would be good cooling mods (if any) for this setup
* Should I run stress tests as soon as I set everything up, and what should those be (sandra only)?

thanks guys.

Your main problem isn't fans and cooling. It's power consumption. You didn't mention what CPU you were planning on using. If it's a dual core, make sure you have great faith in your power supply. My current system is similar to your specs with SLI 7800gt and a Opty 165. Even my 550w gets quite hot to the touch under load, and I watercool with the pump plugged in to the wall not my PS. Also my HDs are a couple Seagates, not Raptors which run hotter and consume more power. Even with the heat from the cpu and vid cards being pumped out to an external radiator, the PS still gets hot. Keep an eye on it. I'm very interested in one of the new high efficiency power supplies. 20% more efficient, therefore that much less heat, would be a good thing. I'm harping on the power supply because it's the part that will kill a whole system if it dies badly.

Some case manufacturers point the side fans to blow air out of the case. This is not good. You want the side fans to blow air INTO the case and ONTO the motherboard. The front fans should be bringing cool air IN. The back and top fans should be exhausting hot air OUT.

The A8N32-SLI has ONE usable PCI slot if you run SLI cards. It's the one above the second video card. Don't even think of using the one immediately below the primary video card, even if you can somehow shoehorn a PCI card in there you'll probably block the fan intake on your main 7800. I've got an Audigy2 card in the second slot, works fine.

Also keep track of your mosfet temps on the motherboard if you oc, at least at first. Mine seems to be pretty much a tank so far, but you don't want to cook a $250 mobo for fun.

Take it easy and don't get frustrated. The board frankly has too many bios options for cpu and memory. It's easy to get things buggered up. Reset defaults is your friend.

Good luck and have fun. That's one seriously high end rig you're putting together. Enjoy it.

Im waiting on an almost identical system, the 4400+ and raptors in my sig, my a8n32 and 2gig 3500LLPRO already ordered and im just waiting for them.

I chose the Seasonic S12 600w SLi psu.

Anyways, when building a new system dont put everything in there and boot up, only install what is absolutely necessary for it to work, meaning cpu, ram, ONE vidcard, that's all, then get it to work, install windows, the first batch of drivers like mobo drivers, vidcard drivers, , directx, windows update.

Then check up on everything, making sure everything is fine, checking up on temps and voltages, first then you should add the other parts like second vidcard and soundcard and what else you have, and one piece at a time testing in between.

Stock cooling will keep your CPU within temperature specification, but seeing how you're spending so much on the case, PSU, and motherboard, why cool your CPU with something so basic? I think you should at least upgrade your CPU thermal solution for the sake of lower temperatures and noise. I would recommend something like the Freezer64 Pro or the XP-90 Retail if you wanted to keep the price down a bit.

That PSU is indeed a good one, it should be able to handle the loads. Your case is a fantastic one, and is very well ventilated... so don't worry about case temperature. You've got way more than enough airflow to remove heat from the important parts of your motherboard. As for your hard drives... are you running them in RAID0? RAID0 has been proven to be just hype, now that the 150GB Raptors are out. Seagates run cooler, by the way. Somebody mentioned Raptors runningn cool...

That case will look even better if you keep the wiring neat... so use the included velcro straps and twist ties to keep things out of the way. Do take pics if you can, this sounds like a pretty mean build.

As for a torture test, run the Prime95 torture test with the blend setting... it'll stress your CPU & RAM subsystem. rthdribl will stress your GPUs.

That looks like a really decent case. You might flip the rear 92mm fans to exhaust, rather than intake. You'll create a little overpressure, but no big deal. I've got the A8N32 with 4200 X2, Zalman 9600(?) heatpipe CPU cooler with Arctic silver 5, 1gb Corsair 3200Pro, PC Power & Cooling 510, 1 Raptor, and a 6600GT in a Lian-Li with 5 80mm fans. 2 intake in front, 2 rear exhaust, top blow hole exhaust. Average 36C-38C for system, and processor. The Zalman blows across the end of the heatpipe, exits through the rear fans. Strange thing, at times the cpu will be cooler than the system temp. Right now, my processor is at 34C, system is at 38C. The PCB acting as heatsink seems to be effective.

That case, and a decent CPU heatsink/fan, and you should be plenty cool.

Temperatures are the most frustrating parting of this Mobo. I can't seem to lower it any more than 34 on the CPU nad 34 on the Mobo. I'm running 1/2" dual radiator configuration and 120mm fans with little to no effect on the temps. I know for a FACT that the temps are being read wrong. All systems check out green but no luck getting this thing any cooler.

I recieved the A8N32 today, waiting on the cpu and ram (tomarrow) and next week for the case. Also ordered a freezer 64 off newegg, thanks for the tips will take pic when the case is here.

cheers

Avoid any noobish mistakes involving thumb-screws and powered-on motherboard contact. After installing a new heatsink to upgrade from stock on my 4400, I was putting the case cover back on and trying to secure it with thumb screws. One of the screws slipped out of my grasp and fell behind the computer. Somehow it wormed it's way through one of my open slots in the back, fell on top of the motherboard (which was powered on because I wanted to test everything out before I sealed everything up), and my computer immediately shut down. Not a good feeling. Afterward, everything would power up but the motherboard refused to post. I ended up going through the RMA process and (luckily) am waiting on a replacement board now.

Oh well, I'd say I've got another 8 days or so before it ships out from Asus RMA... I can say that you should be super happy with the board -- everything was working tip-top for me up until I fried it.

Issue: CPU Cooler pushes against ram
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
Mobo: A8N32-SLI
RAM: Corsair 3500LL-PRO

I have recieved all but my case, which comes in two days but i'm testing this cooler out now.
In short, the heat sink pushes, slightly, against my Corsair memory module in dim slot 1A. Specifically, the plastic casing of the fan that wraps around one side of the heatsink is pushing against the ram.

I have the heatsink rotated 90 degrees clockwise from the "default" position. The default position has the front side of the fan flush with the memory and blowing over the heat sink twords the rear of the case, where the IO port is. In my case the rear fans are intake fans and I dont intened on changing the airflow design. The manual say you can rotate it and the device indeed has slots ready for the rotated position, so i turned it such that it blows air from the bottom of the case to the top, where the exhaust fans of the case are located.

A solution I've thought about is filing down the part of the plastic that is touching the memory, it doesnt seem crucial since it is the plastic clip above the memory that keeps the fan case attached to the sink.

So.. is cutting off that part of the plastic a bad idea... is leaving the plastic to slightly push against the ram also a bad idea? Is the heat sink too close to the ram anyways, pushing or not?


[the upper most LED light is about where the plastic makes contact]

If the plastic section you're intending to file away isn't a structural part, I don't see why not. It looks like you won't have to file away all that much material anyway. More pics?

why not use the other two slots?

my ocz600adj doesnt even get warm with my 506 at 1.75v and 4.4 ghz, my 2x1024mb slimbody d9's at 2.3v and 450 fsb, my x850 xt-pe,my two seagate 200gb's my D5, and all my fans off the psu... you should be all set on the psu... esp since i replaced my fans with L1A's and the thermal control on the psu keeps em running so slow you gotta put your finger within 2cm of the fans to feel any heat/air even under load but this kinda explains why it runs so cool...

perfect regulation as well... load vs idle is like +-0.01v

Is that a naked PSU? I'd be careful shocking the shit out of myself. Although it's not on PSU's holds a charge for quite some time. Just my observation from the picture.

BiggusDiccus said:

Is that a naked PSU? I'd be careful shocking the shit out of myself. Although it's not on PSU's holds a charge for quite some time. Just my observation from the picture.

Click to expand...

thats when i opened it to change out the fans... its closed back up... as long as you dont try and lick the psu your fine

"Lickins bad, m'kay?"

I was thinking of putting the ram in the black slots instead but the manual gives conflicting advise

"When using two DDR DIMM modules, install into DIMM_A1 and DIMM_B1 slots only."
and
"Supports one pair of modules inserted into either the blue slots or the black slots as one pair of Dual=channel memory configurations"

here's some more pics of the 'situation'.

not sure how to approach filing down the plastic.. knife i guess?

just file it down... i wouldnt bother and just put it in the black slots tho.... lol

i'm going to put them in the black slots, hope nothing dies.. in the middle of the install.

the freezer 64 pro also does not sit fully flush with the heat spreader on the chip.. i read about that, kinda bad.

The heatsink base does not need to cover the entire CPU.

Up and running. In the bios hardware monitor (a8n32) it says that the CPU temp is 44C and the MB temp is 45C. This seems high and i dont undertand why the mobo temp would be higher. The two rear intake fans are connected to CHAS_FAN1 and CHAS_FAN2 and the two top exhaust fans are connected to standard 12V plugs.