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So, hey everyone. I built a SG03 SFF when the setup was just getting popular. My specs were:
Q6600 G0
Gigabyte GA33M-DS2R
4GB DDR2-800 Crucial
Corsair 620HX
NT06 Lite
eVGA 8800GTS 640mb (revision 2.0)
320GB HD
20x DVD writer
Scythe SFF21F 120mm x2
Thermaltake A1357 80mm fan lodged under the heatsink and northbridge cooler.
So, I built it and got a stable OC @ 3.0Ghz (333x9), vcore ~1.3, vDimm 2.2, and I think FSB +.1 or .2. Temps at full load using OCCT were a crazy 70 degrees, but I didn't mind too much as normal apps don't tax the cores as hard as OCCT does, and the highest I've ever seen number-crunching apps like HandBrake push the core temps were around 63. These are the temperatures as reported by CoreTemp, btw.
All was well for a while. My case sits on top of my desk, which is next to the wall, and the desk has a little bay area under it for a keyboard.
Well, one day, I was really pissed about my Internet connection's lagginess, and I shoved my keyboard bay thing into the desk pretty hard. My computer, which was on at the time, instantly turned off. I tried pushing the power button, and nothing worked. I took it apart, checked if everything was plugged in, and it was. I tried booting with a minimum config (CPU, heatsink, 1 ram stick, onboard video) with no luck. I discount the possibility of there having been a surge, as my file server, which is plugged into the same power strip, is still working. Thinking it may have been a bad PSU, i try another with the min config with no luck.
I call my friend up, who was as dumbfounded by what happened as I was but had a PC with nearly identical specs, and I start swapping in parts to see what was damaged. The procedure went like this:
*swapped video cards, and found that mine didn't display video.
* plugged his functional CPU into my mobo, and found it wouldnt boot.
* plugged my CPU into his mobo, and found that it ALSO did not work.
RAM was fine, however. :-p
SO, a dead CPU, mobo, and a bloody GFX. Unbelievable. And, worst of all, I was just past the 30 days of Newegg's warranty, so I had to wait a month and a half to ship my parts to the OEMs and get replacements.
It was not fun.
It's up and running again, but because I'm not quite sure what exactly happened, I have not overclocked anything in there at all.
I have a theory, however, and it concerns the SG03 case. If you look at the back metal, you'll notice it's very flimsy. When I tried to secure my video card in place using a screw, I found to my dismay that the metal would become stripped INSTANTLY, and thus would not hold in the screw properly. As such, it is pretty easy to wiggle the screw out of its hole and thus let the video card droop. I've since found that this is a problem on all the screw holes. What I think happened was when I slammed my keyboard bay in, I must have made the video card shake violently, thus causing a surge that killed it, the mobo, and the CPU.
I'm welcome to more plausible ideas if you have them, but I don't know what else could have happened short of the circuit board short-circuiting RIGHT when I slammed in the keyboard bay.
So, beware, SG03 owners! Be careful around that computer, or else!
P.S. I should mention that eVGA was kind enough to give me a step-up card in exchange for my fried one, thus saving me of having to send my GFX in again to upgrade it (though I think I'll do so anyway for the 8800GT). They had well-trained reps that spoke good English. Intel had outsourced their reps, but they had no qualms shipping me my new in box CPU via Second Day UPS on the same day that they got it.
Gigabyte, though, was horrible: they tried to repair it, and they provide terrible updates to the status of the RMA. I had to call them after two weeks, and they told me they'd put a "rush" tag in my ticket and that I should call back in a week to check up on it. I did so, but the status on the RMA did not change, so it was a shock when I got my mobo back a full month after I had sent it. When I got it back, there was actually a chip that was clinging to one of the lower MOSFETs, which freaked me out until I saw it was just a loose part and not something detached from my mobo.
Q6600 G0
Gigabyte GA33M-DS2R
4GB DDR2-800 Crucial
Corsair 620HX
NT06 Lite
eVGA 8800GTS 640mb (revision 2.0)
320GB HD
20x DVD writer
Scythe SFF21F 120mm x2
Thermaltake A1357 80mm fan lodged under the heatsink and northbridge cooler.
So, I built it and got a stable OC @ 3.0Ghz (333x9), vcore ~1.3, vDimm 2.2, and I think FSB +.1 or .2. Temps at full load using OCCT were a crazy 70 degrees, but I didn't mind too much as normal apps don't tax the cores as hard as OCCT does, and the highest I've ever seen number-crunching apps like HandBrake push the core temps were around 63. These are the temperatures as reported by CoreTemp, btw.
All was well for a while. My case sits on top of my desk, which is next to the wall, and the desk has a little bay area under it for a keyboard.
Well, one day, I was really pissed about my Internet connection's lagginess, and I shoved my keyboard bay thing into the desk pretty hard. My computer, which was on at the time, instantly turned off. I tried pushing the power button, and nothing worked. I took it apart, checked if everything was plugged in, and it was. I tried booting with a minimum config (CPU, heatsink, 1 ram stick, onboard video) with no luck. I discount the possibility of there having been a surge, as my file server, which is plugged into the same power strip, is still working. Thinking it may have been a bad PSU, i try another with the min config with no luck.
I call my friend up, who was as dumbfounded by what happened as I was but had a PC with nearly identical specs, and I start swapping in parts to see what was damaged. The procedure went like this:
*swapped video cards, and found that mine didn't display video.
* plugged his functional CPU into my mobo, and found it wouldnt boot.
* plugged my CPU into his mobo, and found that it ALSO did not work.
RAM was fine, however. :-p
SO, a dead CPU, mobo, and a bloody GFX. Unbelievable. And, worst of all, I was just past the 30 days of Newegg's warranty, so I had to wait a month and a half to ship my parts to the OEMs and get replacements.
It was not fun.
It's up and running again, but because I'm not quite sure what exactly happened, I have not overclocked anything in there at all.
I have a theory, however, and it concerns the SG03 case. If you look at the back metal, you'll notice it's very flimsy. When I tried to secure my video card in place using a screw, I found to my dismay that the metal would become stripped INSTANTLY, and thus would not hold in the screw properly. As such, it is pretty easy to wiggle the screw out of its hole and thus let the video card droop. I've since found that this is a problem on all the screw holes. What I think happened was when I slammed my keyboard bay in, I must have made the video card shake violently, thus causing a surge that killed it, the mobo, and the CPU.
I'm welcome to more plausible ideas if you have them, but I don't know what else could have happened short of the circuit board short-circuiting RIGHT when I slammed in the keyboard bay.
So, beware, SG03 owners! Be careful around that computer, or else!
P.S. I should mention that eVGA was kind enough to give me a step-up card in exchange for my fried one, thus saving me of having to send my GFX in again to upgrade it (though I think I'll do so anyway for the 8800GT). They had well-trained reps that spoke good English. Intel had outsourced their reps, but they had no qualms shipping me my new in box CPU via Second Day UPS on the same day that they got it.
Gigabyte, though, was horrible: they tried to repair it, and they provide terrible updates to the status of the RMA. I had to call them after two weeks, and they told me they'd put a "rush" tag in my ticket and that I should call back in a week to check up on it. I did so, but the status on the RMA did not change, so it was a shock when I got my mobo back a full month after I had sent it. When I got it back, there was actually a chip that was clinging to one of the lower MOSFETs, which freaked me out until I saw it was just a loose part and not something detached from my mobo.