More than a forum, we’re a family!
The build
Looking closer at the motherboard, WYP spotted the dreaded “CPU Fault” LED was in fact illuminated. Refusing to stop there and just excepting, like many of us would, that the CPU was just faulty and needed to be replaced. Â With thoughts lying with the CPU, WYP moved to the BIOS, the only problem is that the board was showing no signs of any life. Â Not being defeated, he delved into the manual to look and see if there was an alternative method to update and flash the BIOS. As luck would have it, the donor board has dual BIOS chips.
So flipping the switch across and crossing his fingers, pressed the power button again …..
Life roared into the board! So using an old 30GB SSD and a quick OS installation later, the system was up and running, undergoing a night of stability testing. So other than the corrupt/faulty BIOS chip, the system was seen to be fully working again, the CPU passing an overnight marathon with OCCT. The time had come to sort out the rest of the parts for Aaron’s new system.
Hearing of SparkleDJackson and WYP’s generosity, the guvnor himself, TTL, hopped up into his loft of dreams to help out. Finding a CPU cooler (Noctua NH-D15) and case (Phanteks P400) already fitted with several Bitfenix Spectre LED fans. With these on top of the test PSU WYP had thrown into the mix, the build was coming together nicely with the following specs :
Case: Phanteks P400
CPU: Intel Sandy Bridge i7 3930K
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 (Bitfenix Spectre fans)
Motherboard: ASUS X79 Rampage IV Extreme
RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 4x4GB 2133MHz DDR3
GPU: HD 7870 Tahiti LE – Aftermarket Accelero S1 Plus (+120mm fan)
SSD: 128GB Samsung 830
HDD: Seagate 3TB
PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
The build was completed and WYP delivered the gift to Aaron, where they set about installing Windows 10 and most importantly, Rocket League. Setting the fans to “Hot pink” to celebrate their first gaming session. Over the following weekend, some overclocks were applied, moving the HD 7870 Tahiti from 975MHz on the core to 1125MHz and the memory clocks from 1500MHz to 1600MHz. Sadly the CPU didn’t like overclocking, requiring 1.4V to remain stable at 4.4GHz. So for now the CPU will remain on stock clocks, which itself is a huge boost over his old system.
Â
 Â
 Â
 Â
 Â
