Dumbest build decisions?

[Jayhova]

I bought an i9-14900K and re-used my 4-year old $25 CPU cooler on it (Cooler Master 212 Black)

CPU was reaching over 95C immediately upon launching a game, it got so hot it started to throttle itself which cased stutters in games. It was generating so much heat my case couldn't keep up, it was like an oven in there with the trapped heat and I was worried the heat would affect other components.

I replaced the $25 cooler with a $200 360mm AIO. Now my CPU stays at about 55C in even the newest games (Wukong, Silent Hill 2, etc.) - this was my IDLE temp on the CM 212 cooler lol.

So yeah, don't re-use a $25 CPU cooler for a $500 CPU. I'm surprised I didn't break the chip as the CM212 is almost like having no cpu cooling at all when you're dealing with an i9.

[Ursk Vorenkh]

Dude, you shouldn't have used a CPU cooler on such a hot stone in the first place. They learn from mistakes, so... XD

[ˢᵈˣ FatCat]

long time ago, i thought the purpose we have fans was to bring the cold air from outside and bring it inside, not dissipate the hot temp inside the case to the outside, so you can say i put my entire PC at risk

[Illusion of Progress]

I can't think of any silly mistakes I made when building new PCs (2007 and onward), but I can think of one in particular when I was younger and less knowledgeable, and still playing around with old pre-builts in the early 2000s.

The one I had was some custom White box Pentium III platform using the baby AT (not ATX) form factor, so it was old even for that time. Those power supplies used a pair of connectors (1x6 pin arrangement each) that connected directly next to one another, and they could physically be plugged into either one. If you connected them wrong, the PSU, motherboard, and/or who knows what else was gone. And I happened to unknowingly do just do that.

The penalty I had to deal with because of that mistake was using an older Pentium 166 MHz/16 MB (or 32 MB, I forget) Windows 95 PC for for a couple weeks, and I actually bought my "new" (used) PC on eBay bidding from that. It was very slow to load Windows, a web browser, or do any page loads haha, but it was an experience I'll never forget.

Първоначално публикувано от Jayhova:

CPU was reaching over 95C immediately upon launching a game, it got so hot it started to throttle itself which cased stutters in games. It was generating so much heat my case couldn't keep up, it was like an oven in there with the trapped heat and I was worried the heat would affect other components.

If the bold is correct, then it would have happened regardless of what cooling you have on the CPU. The heat added into the case (from the CPU) is down to how much wattage it pulls, not how warm the CPU is operating in a given moment. The CPU being warmer is merely a byproduct of the heat it is creating not being transferred off of it and into the environment fast enough (which itself is a result of the cooler being incapable for the CPU).

Actually, if it was throttling, you were added slightly less heat than if it weren't throttling.

[A&A]

Ouch...
You can still use it with this cheap cooler, but you really have to sacrifice performance.
Nobody wants that

[_I_]

cm 212 was the best cooler for cpus <100w and was dirt cheap at its time

but its not good enough for newer cpus that can go to 200+w

im sure it did well, but at max load the cpu would be thermal throttling

for a similar price point the thermalright peerless assassin 120 is the new king
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hYxRsY/thermalright-peerless-assassin-120-se-6617-cfm-cpu-cooler-pa120-se-d3

[Vince ✟]

Placed radiator of AIO into cold water tank to see if it could bring temps lower than room.

It just wasnt efficient.

[Philco7a]

My 14900k has a tiny tiny air cooler. It never overheats gaming.
Ecores and Hyperthreading disabled in bios.
I did what this guy did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifko0dvmH2U
plus thermalgrizzly cpu hold down plate, 15mm fans above and below the air cooler. I've never seen over 84*.

[Skkooomer Lord]

I have a 15 buck cooler on my 14600K and performs like this.
My video below, on a B760 board with no VRM cooling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv7VIWZum58&t=312s


Now the so-called smart people will tell me I am wrong, even though I know better than them.
And that is evidence.

For the people pairing 400w capable CPU's with that kind of rubbish cooling, you had it coming to you.

[Jayhova]

Първоначално публикувано от Philco7a:

My 14900k has a tiny tiny air cooler. It never overheats gaming.
Ecores and Hyperthreading disabled in bios.
I did what this guy did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifko0dvmH2U
plus thermalgrizzly cpu hold down plate, 15mm fans above and below the air cooler. I've never seen over 84*.

Yeah I've tried that. My motherboard has a profile that disables the cores. It was a few degree difference but not anything meaningful, I also didn't notice much difference in fps but I didn't test performance much. Do you notice game performance improvement?

I'd be interested in messing around with that more IF theres a noticeable performance improvement. If I'm just gonna get 210 fps instead of 200 fps then not really worth it.

[Philco7a]

Jayhova, I had to ditch the Corsair One i500 motherboard because Corsair renamed the MSI board in Bios and could not accept MSI bios updates. Corsair locks down their computers you can't change anything in Bios. But I found the same motherboard for $60 at microcenter.
I ditched Windows and went Linux Mint "Edge" that supports that CPU and 4080 Super. Went from fans blowing like a jet engine to can't even hear the fans spin up at all. NO background AI running.

[SHAZBOT]

8600g doesnt support 16x ♥♥♥♥ me sideways first time in my life i bought something blind

[skOsH♥]

one time I accidentally hooked up the 1394 connection incorrectly.

Now that's basically impossible to do on newer motherboards

Also when I was younger I didn't actually understand the concept of bottlenecking as much. Thought I could just update a gpu over and over.

Edit: also once I upgraded my ram from 256mb to 768mb with a 512mb stick. It still ran slightly faster but I mismatched the ram

[Illusion of Progress]

Първоначално публикувано от skOsH:

Also when I was younger I didn't actually understand the concept of bottlenecking as much. Thought I could just update a gpu over and over.

Edit: also once I upgraded my ram from 256mb to 768mb with a 512mb stick. It still ran slightly faster but I mismatched the ram

I wouldn't consider either of these "dumb mistakes" per se.

Bottlenecking is grossly exaggerated these days.

And RAM being mismatched isn't optimal, but when it works, it works, and one could posit that if you needed more than 256 MB, then 768 MB running slower is still better for you than 256 MB running faster.

Running at slower speed did effect the FSB to also run slower, which could have real effects on performance back then especially, but how much would depend on various factors.

I'm presuming that was DDR1 as well, but in case it was SDRAM, it would have mattered even less since dual channel wasn't a thing for that.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

And CoolerMaster is unreliable and cheapo but I use them for case fans so to each their own.

[76561198836691314]

it would be to ask such a question here.
be aware of many fake experts here, in this forum.
how to spot a fake expert watch?v=N1Sw8fe9hJI&t=20s
it is about guns but it does not really matter, works the same way.
how to spot a real expert watch?v=swUTCZXE6AY&t=396s