Updating your PC

[Jub-Jub]

You said it was working before? Before dicking around too much my suggestion would be to return it to the original state and see if it'll still run. If it does add in new PSU and check again before trying with GFX.

I'd also double check if you have power to your HDs and M/B and that the SATA connection between HDs and MB are still connected. It looks like they are, it's just hard to tell.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

I'm gonna tinker with it for awhile, see if I can get anything going. Thanks, all of you for the advice and recommendations. I thoroughly appreciate it! I'll be back in an hour or so to check this thread so please respond if you have anything else that might be worth trying.

You've all been very helpful and patient to a clueless novice like myself. Thanks again and I'll check back to see if you guys come up with something new. If I get lucky and figure this thing out, I'll be sure to let ya know.

Oh man. At times like this you really start to appreciate modular PSUs lol.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

The thing that definitely stands out to me in those pics is the CPU fan isn't attached to the heatsink correctly. I don't know if it would even spin up like that, but even if it does it might not be doing an adequate job of cooling the CPU. That might explain why the system powers up and then shuts down after a minute.

It looks odd, but it seems to be flat against it.

Edit - Looked up some pics of that pc, that's just how they mount normally.

Further edit for op - Is that a new psu and what model is it? Janky PSUs can cause so much shit. I second a previous post, return it back to original config to establish a baseline.

 

[Un Platano]

The heat sink on your CPU is a piece of junk. It's a stock heat sink with a very small case fan on it. Depending on what sort of fan that is you might run into performance problems because it's too small. The stock fan that Intel uses for their heat sinks is designed to run at very high speeds to make up for the small area of the fan and heat sink (which in turn makes them very loud). If that's not a high speed fan and is just a regular case fan stuck on a tiny heat sink, you'll probably run into temperature problems. It won't break your CPU but instead it will slow itself down to keep within a safe operating temperature. The i5 6400 only has a TDP of 61 watts which isn't huge so you may be fine, but it's not at all ideal, especially if it gets filled with dust. Manufacturers put those crappy heat sinks on when they know most people buying their computers won't know that it's not normal for your CPU to run at 97 C and sound like a vacuum cleaner.

Another thing to consider about the temperatures is that the case wasn't designed with a GPU in mind. The GPU will both reduce your airflow and add more heat to the computer, which will decrease the performance of the CPU heat sink even more. There doesn't appear to be a front air intake on the computer, so there's no good route for airflow. Their goal might have been to take air in through the empty expansion slots, but having a big GPU in the way makes that a lot harder.

However, all of this may not be a problem. Your computer might be completely fine operating like this. But it could very well not be, especially if you run it for long periods of time.

 

[Caesare]

@MrTroll did you delete this comment?

The thing that definitely stands out to me in those pics is the CPU fan isn't attached to the heatsink correctly. I don't know if it would even spin up like that, but even if it does it might not be doing an adequate job of cooling the CPU. That might explain why the system powers up and then shuts down after a minute.

Because you were absolutely correct. The way it looks crooked like that was how the manufacturer had it situated for whatever reason from the beginning, because while everything was still working fine and I opened up the case last night, it was in that crooked position.

I used @murgatroid suggestion and went back to the beginning, removing the new graphics card and power supply to try and pinpoint the issue. I reconnected the old power supply, plugged the HDMI cable into the onboard factory video card, and powered it up. This time, the screen said there was a cooling fan not working.

I was hopeful that we were narrowing down the possible issue while also feeling kinda sad, thinking I just might've broke something else while tinkering, being both inexperienced and dumb.

I powered off and unplugged, checked the little connectors on both fans that plug into the motherboard. They were snug tight, so that was a dead end.

Then I remembered something I did late last night as it was getting really late. I was very tired, getting ready to give up for the night. But for some ungodly reason, I loosened the 4 screws on the CPU fan and removed it. I think I wanted more space to work around. (work around what I don't know, I was very sleepy and starting to get a little confused and delirious.

I saw that removing it did absolutely nothing that would help so I put the 4 screws back in and went to bed.

Since the fans were both connected to the motherboard properly, I checked the 4 screws that secured the CPU fan and wouldn't you know, 2 were a little loose. Somehow I hadn't even noticed the two loose screws with the case removed and the inside exposed.

I tightened them until all 4 screws were snug and tried booting up again with the old power supply and it started up fine, CPU fan again spinning with vigor.

So I try it again with just the new power supply and the factory video card to narrow it down incase a new issue came up. Thankfully the new power supply works fine, the computer started right up.

All that's left now is the new graphics card. I power down, stick it in the slot and plug the previously unused wire from the new power supply into it, start the computer and it starts up fine.

A few setbacks but all in all a decent experience. Thank you to everyone for the helpful suggestions. Even basic info that you may think everyone knows is appreciated, cuz those are the things that ppl tend to overlook, especially a novice like me.

Again, thanks a million! You guys kept me from having to join some stuck up computer forum where they'd probably make passive aggressive comments and treat me with contempt.

 

[MrTroll]

@MrTroll did you delete this comment?

Yeah, @Just Some Other Guy was right about it being that way by design in your model, so I deleted my post. But I'm glad that fixed the issue. Intel's stock fans/heatsinks are flimsy enough on their own so I can't imagine why HP would intentionally put them on crookedly on top of it.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Wow imagine the temp headroom is so tight that just a slightly loose fan dooms it lol. I'd really look into at least a cheap 212 Evo:

Robot Check

though I've seen them on sale for a little as $20.

 

[HeyYou]

Yeah, that's a very odd issue that I hadn't even considered. I definitely agree with getting a completely new fan, even screwed on correctly you might run into temp issues.

 

[ZMOT]

is it really that easy? I've always bought the parts I want for my PC and ask a friend to build it for me, because I'm too paranoid and I get the feeling I'll fuck something up... and thermal paste, since he works on building and fixing PCs he always has thermal paste at hand, so thats like 20 bucks less that I can spend on games.

it is if you have at least some experience using your hands and don't handle electronics like a brute. just remember you handle expensive stuff. there should be plenty of videos around about it.
these days you rather will fall into traps with the software, how to set things in the bios and when windows decides to be an annoying little bitch.

thermal paste comes with every new cpu with fan or just fan, and when applied properly lasts for years, so after time you end up with plenty to spare. there's also not much difference between brands unless you really want to squeeze out a few more degrees for OC headroom.

Nah not really, there are a lot of small dumb things that can go wrong and you have to scour a lot of places for parts. Just go to PCPartPicker and find a build that seems popular and in your price range. Or go to Costco and buy whatever gaming laptop they have on display, since gaming laptops have gotten pretty good these days.

unless you need the mobility or are limited in space a gaming laptop is a complete waste of money. they are more expensive than the equal desktop hardware, have nonsense-configurations half the time and almost no options for an upgrade. if you want space might as well go with an ITX.

you also don't have to "scour a lot of places for parts", this isn't a scavenger hunt. most stores will have everything you need, unless you're willing to order from different stores for specific brands or to save a few bucks (which you then spend on wasting more time dealing with buying stuff all over the place).

 

[Pissmaster]

unless you need the mobility or are limited in space a gaming laptop is a complete waste of money. they are more expensive than the equal desktop hardware, have nonsense-configurations half the time and almost no options for an upgrade. if you want space might as well go with an ITX.

I actually wanted to build out an ITX box, but the amount of power you were sacrificing for the cost just made it not worth it. I ultimately just decided that the laptop route would be better considering I get full mobility for not much more.

Well, almost full mobility. I can play Hitman 2 for about 25 minutes off of the battery, and they still come with proprietary power supplies, so you're stuck needing to plug in whenever you can.

What I was getting at is how trying to game on a laptop today isn't anything like it was 10 years ago, when the few that had dedicated GPUs used shitty mobile variants that stuttered at anything more advanced than Rollercoaster Tycoon. 2009 midrange laptops couldn't even hit 60fps on Half Life 2 at 640x480 low, a well optimized game from 2004.

I still kinda wanna build an ITX box someday, I'm enamored with the thought of a PC that's basically a DIY game console.

 

[ZMOT]

I actually wanted to build out an ITX box, but the amount of power you were sacrificing for the cost just made it not worth it. I ultimately just decided that the laptop route would be better considering I get full mobility for not much more.

yeah, the mobility can't be beat, no one wants to lug around a case + monitor and peripherals everywhere. it has it's price tho, and most of them are a crappy intel + nvidia combo sadly.

you could check out some matx cases, they aren't that much bigger but none of the ITX hassle or extra cost. iirc one of the new fractal design is on the smaller side.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

In general, prebuilts from companies like HP in the past have come with random proprietary or bizarre bullshit so that upgrades have to go through the manufacturer. I don't know if that's all the case with yours, but that's more or less why upgrading old prebuilts isn't a popular idea. I had one in 2000 that I tried to get a RAM upgrade for, only to find it needed something called RDRAM, which made upgrading it more expensive than it was worth. It's the only time in my entire life I've ever heard of RDRAM.

RDRAM was the horse Intel bet on with Pentium 4 and it was part of what made that platform suck and there's a lot of animosity towards Rambus. It was used in the PS2 and N64 though, the N64 even launched in the Pentium 1 era.

The uncertainty that comes with prebuilt office computers is that they make everything to spec, there are obviously standards but it can be semi-custom design decision in both hardware and software(bios).
Something that could but shouldn't happen is that they don't adhere to the PCI-E standard closely enough. A user might think that standard PCI-Express slot should be able to provide 75W, meaning that it can power what is put into it and the videocard would see that it is a PCI-E 3.0 interface and assume as much itself, but with some office computers that isn't true. It would probably still work, over-provisioning and all that, but the copper traces in the motherboard might have been intended to provide a maximum of 35W.

Yeah, @Just Some Other Guy was right about it being that way by design in your model, so I deleted my post. But I'm glad that fixed the issue. Intel's stock fans/heatsinks are flimsy enough on their own so I can't imagine why HP would intentionally put them on crookedly on top of it.

Overclocking is not possible on machines like that, even bumping the FSB speed can't be done. So it's fine, it's not going to thermal throttle hard or anything, especially given the clock speed(2.7ghz, 65W). Replacing heatsinks and fans in a machine like that is worthwhile if you are trying to lower noise though, but installing watercooling and hanging a radiator in a case like that is not going to happen.

The mounting on the motherboard is probably standard, so that can be transferred to a new case that accommodates flashier cooling. The RAM is obviously not the fastest but it is DDR4 so it can be used as a stopgap when upgrading to a new motherboard/cpu. The will be GPU fine for quite a while and the HDD/SSD will work on everything.
Cheap office computers like these are a good starting point for the cash strapped student that wants to upgrade incrementally over time.

@Coleman Francis - remember that in the future you can pick up a compatible i7 processor from eBay, they are around a hundred bucks right now. And Jesus, I had forgotten that they made 6GB DIMMs.

 

[Caesare]

@Coleman Francis - remember that in the future you can pick up a compatible i7 processor from eBay, they are around a hundred bucks right now. And Jesus, I had forgotten that they made 6GB DIMMs.

Awesome, thanks for that info. That's not a bad price at all. I'll probably add that at some unknown future date.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

What I was getting at is how trying to game on a laptop today isn't anything like it was 10 years ago, when the few that had dedicated GPUs used shitty mobile variants that stuttered at anything more advanced than Rollercoaster Tycoon. 2009 midrange laptops couldn't even hit 60fps on Half Life 2 at 640x480 low, a well optimized game from 2004.

My Lenovo laptop with a GeForce 240M handled TES Oblivion at a decent frame rate at native resolution (1396 x 762 or whatever it was). It got hot as fuck doing it, but it did it. This was in 2009 exactly, I believe. Don't remember the exact model but it definitely wasn't "top of the line".

 

[Caesare]

Wow imagine the temp headroom is so tight that just a slightly loose fan dooms it lol. I'd really look into at least a cheap 212 Evo:

Robot Check

though I've seen them on sale for a little as $20.

Now that I have a slightly better understanding of how to do this stuff, managing to replace parts without breaking everything, I'm gonna order one of those ASAP. Several people in this thread commented on the shit quality of the factory CPU fan in that HP model. And for that price it's definitely worth it if it prevents some other problems down the line.

Thanks for the suggestion.

The new Graphics card is working out great btw. I should have done this sooner.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Now that I have a slightly better understanding of how to do this stuff, managing to replace parts without breaking everything, I'm gonna order one of those ASAP. Several people in this thread commented on the shit quality of the factory CPU fan in that HP model. And for that price it's definitely worth it if it prevents some other problems down the line.

Thanks for the suggestion.

The new Graphics card is working out great btw. I have a decent laptop and all, but games I had to play with the settings lowered and still only ran moderately well are flying now with the settings cranked up to max.

As @Smaug's Smokey Hole mentioned, it really isn't mandatory. I'm just really biased against those stock intel coolers lol. If $20 or so (on sale) isn't a breaking point, it's not a bad thing to keep the cpu cooler (and maybe quieter), and you can always use it on your next build.

 

[Caesare]

Another thing to consider about the temperatures is that the case wasn't designed with a GPU in mind. The GPU will both reduce your airflow and add more heat to the computer, which will decrease the performance of the CPU heat sink even more. There doesn't appear to be a front air intake on the computer, so there's no good route for airflow. Their goal might have been to take air in through the empty expansion slots, but having a big GPU in the way makes that a lot harder.

Is there a solution to this potential problem that you could recommend? Right now it's running fine but it hasn't been very long since adding the GPU.

Is it possible to get a larger case and transfer everything to it?

Or would I have to just buy a bigger case, new motherboard and CPU, and transfer the power supply, GPU, and hard drives to it?

 

[Un Platano]

Is there a solution to this potential problem that you could recommend? Right now it's running fine but it hasn't been very long since adding the GPU.

Is it possible to get a larger case and transfer everything to it?

Or would I have to just buy a bigger case, new motherboard and CPU, and transfer the power supply, GPU, and hard drives to it?

The only problem you might run into with buying a new case is that the motherboard might not have standard form factor. Cases and motherboards are designed to the ATX standard which specifies where the screw holes for mounting the motherboard should be located, but manufacturers don't have to follow the standard on prebuilt PCs. You would have to find the screw holes on your current computer and compare it to a standard layout to see if they're compatible.

Your motherboard appears to be ATX size, but you'll have to check that the screws match up with the diagram.

If all this fails and the motherboard isn't standard you could say fuck it and use a cardboard box as a case. If you have a significant other though it may not be compatible with her.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

If all this fails and the motherboard isn't standard you could say fuck it and use a cardboard box as a case. If you have a significant other though it may not be compatible with her.

Does this actually work? I'm building a PC myself and I already have a case, but if this is true, is it possible to build one without a case? I'm just curious because I'm a beginner myself.

 

[Regu]

Does this actually work? I'm building a PC myself and I already have a case, but if this is true, is it possible to build one without a case? I'm just curious because I'm a beginner myself.

Possible but I wouldn't recommend it, the airflow will generally be awful and it'll force your PC to be on its side. This will generally prevent you from using a disc drive as that will either be on its side or you'll need to support/suspend it somehow. There's then the issue that most computer desk aren't designed to have a PC on its side as oppose to being a tower standing straight up. Also it's a fucking massive fire hazard because it's fucking cardboard and a PC can get pretty fucking hot.