Tough Build

A while back, I decided to try my hand at building a HTPC. I’ve built two other computers before, one of which I posted about in January ‘06. Last weekend I ordered all of the parts from newegg.com which is where I buy most, if not all, of my computer supplies. The case that I chose is a much smaller case then usual. It needed to fit in the entertainment center. Inside the case, there is very little room between the components. The DVD-ROM drive’s cables almost touch the CPU fan and the gap between the memory and the DVD-ROM drive can be measured in a few centimeters. Cables also run in front of the chassis fan, which probably restricts airflow a bit.

Limited space wasn’t the only problem I encountered during the build. Once everything was in place and I turned the power on, I could hear that the CPU fan was spinning awfully fast which meant things were not cooling as they should. I touched the case and noticed the power supply was hot. I had three options; try returning for a replacement, buy a second one, or risk fixing it myself. The fan came with the case and I didn’t want to ship something so large, so I decided to try fixing it myself. Before I opened it up, I noticed that the sheet metal was in contact with the fan enough that it prevented the fan from spinning. I corrected the problem by simply prying the metal away from making contact.

I started the computer back up and monitored the temperature of the motherboard and processor from the BIOS screen. The processor heated up to about 55C/133F, which is much too hot. After trying several configurations in an attempt to get more air flow, my solution was to replace the processor’s heat sink, which was leftover from a previous build.

I’m still worried about the temperature of the processor. It’s possible that it will need to be replaced.