Thermaltake Tower112 expert? Just installed mine, and I really need advice pls.

[Treppiede]

Gentlemen,
I finally got my hands on this beautiful piece of CPU Cooling Art. Although I agree that it came with nice instructions and great pictures, I must say that the folks over at Thermaltake have neglected a rather fundamental aspect in their directions: bolt torquing tips. I have read a few horror stories where motherboards have been flexed so much by improper tightening while mounting this 'brick' that the pcb cracked. I was therefore very cautious while tightening the base to the bottom of my D875PBZ and continuously checked her profile to ensure she wasn't warping.

I have two problems right now and I would be immensely grateful if some of you could enlighten me:
1- Not having yet decided which 90mm fan will move enough air while being reasonably quiet (for an exhaust setup) I temporarily bought two cheap 80mm fans equipped with 3pin motherboard connector. Well, these fans spinned kinda slowly and I kept on getting these alert messages from ActiveMonitor, so I disconnected them:

The interesting thing is that even now that they are disconnected, I STILL get the above error every few minutes! What gives? There's nothing plugged in the CPU Fan connector on the motherboard, so ActiveMonitor is complaining about it, but the above error is something completely different and kept on appearing even when the fan were connected, so they are not related... here's a portion of the Alert History:

12/26/04 12:14:08
A voltage (+12 V) has returned to its recommended range.

12/26/04 12:14:07
A voltage (+12 V) has gone outside of its recommended range.
Bad Voltage Value: 3.375 volts

12/26/04 11:41:15
A voltage (+3.3 V) has returned to its recommended range.

12/26/04 11:41:14
A voltage (+3.3 V) has gone outside of its recommended range.
Bad Voltage Value: 0.584 volts

12/26/04 11:13:10
A voltage (+3.3 V) has returned to its recommended range.

12/26/04 11:13:09
A voltage (+3.3 V) has gone outside of its recommended range.
Bad Voltage Value: 4.383 volts

12/26/04 11:11:56
A voltage (+3.3 V) has returned to its recommended range.

12/26/04 11:11:55
A voltage (+3.3 V) has gone outside of its recommended range.
Bad Voltage Value: 0.602 volts

2- Is there a website out there with suggestions on how much to tighten the bolts on the Tower112? I have done my best by eye but I would much rather read some other opinion out there to ensure that my Mobo is being flexed the least possible and the contact with the CPU is optimal.

Please let me know your opinion, this is really a concern to me.

Best Regards,

Walter

 

[Agent_N]

Uhm, I say it's time for you to get a new power supply bud. I don't think that's caused by fans being plugged in to motherboard, or unplugged for that matter. I'd get a new PSU asap, before it damages your computer. That's my educated (?) guess.

 

[Treppiede]

PSU is a Chieftec 400W.
Two optical drives and two SATA HDDs on RAID 0. I think that should be able to handle everything I have... right?

Walter

 

[rusek]

Depends...are you runnng a 6800 Ultra too? Soemthing might be malfunctioning in the PSU also.

 

[killernoodle]

I had one from a chieftec case that took out everything in the computer except the hard drives... I'd get a new truepower. Dont take any chances with the power supply. Get a volt meter and see what it is really reading.

(it may also be your motherboard reading it wrong, but still, dont take chances)

 

[Treppiede]

Depends...are you runnng a 6800 Ultra too?

I'm running a Gainward GFFX5950

Get a volt meter and see what it is really reading.

Where should I check with the Voltmeter? When ActiveMonitor mentions 12+ or 5+... what is it referring to exactly, the power connectors coming out of the PSU?

Also, does anybody know where can I find more detailed instructions on the proper installation of a Tower112?

Thanks so much for the advice guys.

Walter

 

[RawsonDR]

Power supplies gives out three different voltage rails: 12 volts, 5 volts, and 3.3 volts. Fan headers utilize the 12 volt rail, as you will see most fans run on 12 volts. I believe most/all IDE and SATA drives use 5 volts, and I believe the PCI bus utilizes the 3.3 volt rail. Those are just some examples.

So your computer ran perfectly fine before you got the heatsink? And everything else was just how it is except for the heatsink and fans? If this is so then you need to start thinking about what you might have changed/bumped during installation that could cause this. Perhaps you shook something loose in your PSU.

Here's the thing, though: The values reported by your motherboard can not be correct. 3.3v to .602? 12v to 3.375? If your power supply was fluctuating this wildly, your computer would NOT be able to operate. It would instantly crash.
Not to mention that these bad values appear after a long time and only stick around for a period of one second. It must be faulty monitoring.

My Asus probe reads my Tornado CPU fan half the time at 0 rpm, half the time between 3000-4400 rpm (which is true), and every once in awhile at about 8000rpm. Of course my fan spins true the entire time - I simply disabled the monitor. Its just a faulty connection somewhere along the way.