GA-X58A-UD7 Hybrid Silent-Pipe Module (With out Watercooling)

[Tularis]

Hello,

I have the GA-X58A-UD7 and I'm a little worried with the North Bridge cooler.
I'm not planning to use Water-cooling in the computer and so wouldn't fit any Pipes to it.
Is that OK? as the cooler looks Specifically for Water-cooled Installations..

Is that what the Hybrid Silent-Pipe Module is for? Running without Water-cooling?

Welcoming Advice.

Peter.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi Peter and welcome to the forum.
I have exactly the same board. You don't say whether yours is rev 1.0 or rev 2.0. I use watercooling on mine but it is not a necessity, the SilentPipe Module will cool the Notrthbridge quite well without it. If you have the rev 2.0 board it actually comes with an either/or setup and you can change the watercooling block for an ordinary heatsink if you are air cooling.

[Tularis]

Thanks for the reply Dark Mantis

I have the REV1.0 unfortunately I could not find a supplier that SPECIFICITY sold the REV2.0 it seems to be get what your given.
So I have only the Water-Cooler type Heat-sink to use.

I will attached the Hybrid Cooler as I would imagine that will give better temps then not doing it.
Would be nice if it was explained more in the manual though.

[Dark Mantis]

Actually I think that you were lucky getting the rev1.0 board as in my opinion it is  better board then the rev2.0. It is the same motherboard that I am running and I am very pleased with mine. The thing is that the heatsink is available if you wanted one so it is just a case of tracking one down if you decided to go down that road. The Silentpipe cooler works very well though, the only thing is it tends to cover the PCIe x1 slot.

[Tularis]

Thanks for the advice.

I have fitted the Hybrid Cooler but it does get very hot!

One thing is bothering me tho. The board takes an awful long time to POST on screen.
The screen can be black for 3-4 secs before the BIOS kicks in.

I thought this might be me having to change the PCI-E Graphics setting in the bios but I have done that and its the same.

[Dark Mantis]

I have noticed myself that Gigabyte boards do seem to take just that little bit longer to POST. It is probably all in the design of the board.
On another note are you using the stock cooler because they are not so efficient as some of the third party coolers on the market and they would help cool the surrounding devices (northbridge, coils, etc) better also.

[Tularis]

I am using the Intel Stock Cooler yes, and temperatures are hotter then the sun.

85-90 oC under load.

So I have purchased an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 so hopefully this should A) fit and B) reduce the temperatures.

Having a few issues with the SATA Ports tho.
I have all controllers configued in the BIOS as ACHI as I believe that is better then IDE. I also have the 0-3 Ports Set as SATA Native as these are all new drivers.

OS is windows 7, and I ran PC-Mark05. Durning the HDD test the PC Crashed with a BSOD and on reboot the HDD was not detected.
Powered off the PC and rebooted and back it came.

There are sooo many settings for the MANY SATA ports which settings are best, and what possible did I do wrong?
Its hard to tell at this point if its the Disk or the Controller at Fault.

1 x Seagate Monuments XT
1 x Seagate 2TB LP

[Dark Mantis]

The first thing I would say is that unless you need the "hot swap" capabilites or are using SSDs then use the IDE mode as opposed to AHCI. It is more stable and the performance hit for normal magnetic drives is small. It will probably mean a re-install of the OS but if that gives you stability it is a small price to pay. Try that and then post back.
Hopefully the new cooler will help with the temperatures somewhat.

[Tularis]

Cheers,

Its "on the bench" at the moment so no issues with Reinstalling.
The OS drive is a Seagate Hybrid so I Thought it would perform better under AHCI.
If its hardly any different then I will Set it back IDE and Reinstall.

BSOD's always scare me tho, makes me feel i did something wrong.

I just wish there was an "Everything is OK LED" on this mobo.... Its seems to have an LED for everything else.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes you're right about the LEDs. Just a shame that they are so hard to work out which is which

[Tularis]

Hey Dark Mantis,

Having a few CPU Cooler issues...
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2843.0.html

What CPU Cooler do you use on this board?

[absic]

I know that DM water cools his PC.

[Dark Mantis]

As absic has already told you I am a fan of watercooling and that is what I use on my main machine. The cooler you have just installed is ok but not the best by any means.

[Tularis]

Ah I see,

Unfortunately I still don't trust water cooling yet, after seeing pictures of leaks and the like.

I have a feeling its the Heat Sink that is at fault.

So Currently looking at either one of these.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zalman/CNPS_9900_NT/
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Noctua/NH-U9B_SE2/

Its just rather hard to pick when you cant tell if the motherboard heat-sinks will get in the way...

[absic]

Well, I have to say I would go for the Noctua but that is because I am running the Noctua NH-D14 and I am very impressed with its cooling abilities and lack of noise.

The only real issue with this could be if you are using RAM modules with the added cooling fins that run along the top of the module. I have Corsair Dominator and had to remove these additional fins from the top of my RAM when I installed the Noctua. Other than that it fits OK.