Annoying issues with X58A-UD3R

[happyhammer7]

I may have changed some other settings but I cannot remember what I changed. I am now very much sure that there was some bios settings in place causing a conflict. What settings would you recommend when configuring the bios for my type of hardware?

[Dark Mantis]

To be honest I don't see what difference any of those BIOS settings  would have really made but if they helped then why question it?

If it was me setting it up I would have the RAID on the Intel ICH10R southbridge controller and set to RAID mode and then the optical drive on one of the other controllers probably the GSATA and set to IDE mode.

I would set the memory to XMP profile1 as long as it was happy with that, if not manually configure it.

Disable the floppy drive, the full screen logo and make the RAID the primary boot device.

Apart from that just bits and pieces.

[happyhammer7]

Well, it seems that the Corsair H50 pump plugs into the cpu socket on the motherboard. However, by doing this you must disable fan control. It seems that this was the cause of the problem. I restored optimised defaults in the Bios but still disabled the controller. After testing the past couple of hours, I have not had the C: drive issue whilst installing and nor have I had one "windows not responding"

Strange that this seems to have solved the problem. But looking back, I vaguely setting this correctly, but went back to optimised default after a failed overclock.

I also ran HD Tune the other week and it was all over the place. Just ran it again and it seems extremely constant. I know this may not seem related but I am sure these issues were with this setting, and somehow must of affected the CPU.

Fingers crossed it stays like this 

[Dark Mantis]

As a matter of interest what is the current draw of that pump ?

The maximum allowable on any single fan header is 1 amp and personally I wouldn't want to put that to the test. I always think that all pumps and big fans should be either direct to the PSU/molex connector or via a seperate fan controller module.

[happyhammer7]

As a matter of interest what is the current draw of that pump ?

The maximum allowable on any single fan header is 1 amp and personally I wouldn't want to put that to the test. I always think that all pumps and big fans should be either direct to the PSU/molex connector or via a seperate fan controller module.

Sorry got that wrong. The fan, attached to the radiator, is connected to the cpu fan header. The pump itself is connected to the 12v northbridge header on the motherboard

[Dark Mantis]

Either way any of the headers are limited to a max of 1 amp.

[happyhammer7]

Interesting. To be honest mate, I don't know. I done it the way Corsair advised 

[Dark Mantis]

If it is the advised way to do it then it should be within the safety zone for the power usage. So I wouldn't think there is any cause for concern there.

[MoviemanXS]

Interesting. To be honest mate, I don't know. I done it the way Corsair advised 

My 2 cents:
I've always worked from the premise that the least amount of electrical load I run thru the motherboard the better.
Now I know a lot of people don't want their fans at 100% all the time so if thats the case I suggest a fan controller.
Yes, you have to adjust manually but to me if it keeps the fans off of the board connectors it's worth the added expense.
If it was me I'd have both the fan and the pump on a molex connector and off of the board itself..

[Dark Mantis]

Totally in agreement there MoviemanXS!

[happyhammer7]

Me again   

Thought I would provide you with another update. Original issue returned again, when I was backing up/creating system image with the windows 7 utility. The issue then seemed to be constantly present whenever I wrote large amounts of data to either of my 3 internal discs.

I cast my mind back to how the issue disappeared last time, which was when I altered the bios setting, changing the CPU fan speed to full. The corsair h50 has 2 power sources. One for the pump and one for the fan.

I had a Titan fenrir laying around and thought I would give that a go. I installed the cooler and ran various tests to try and replicate the issue. It now seems to have gone again. I can now write to the HDD at a constant 100mb per second, with no windows not responding or complete system slow down.

Can I faulty CPU cooler cause this kind of behaviour? Everything else seems to work fine now I swapped the cooler. By changing the bios setting for the corsair h50 previously, the issue went temporarily. Now using a different cooler it has eradicated it again. Never experienced this kind of system behaviour before so it has been difficult to diagnose.

[Dark Mantis]

To be honest I wouldn't have expected even a faulty cooler to have displayed this type of problem. If you are now running the fan and pump directly from the PSU and have turned off all the BIOS reporting and alarm settings then it should work fine in my opinion.

[happyhammer7]

Thing is, I was running the fan and pump from the fan connectors on the motherboard.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes I understood that as I suggested that this wasn't such a good idea before if I am not mistaken. It is obviously yopur call but I would advise running them both from the PSU molex connectors and as I mentioned disable all the fan and alarm features to do with the CPU in the BIOS.

[Lsdmeasap]

Either way any of the headers are limited to a max of 1 amp.

Motherboard fan headers?

See here, they can run 3amps at 12v (Just FYI  )
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/34197-can-cpu_fan-header-ex58-handle-3-fans.html#post318451