Downgraded PC performs better!
15 Jul 2009 computers
The other day I installed a more powerful graphics card in my main PC, the idea being to free up some memory and computing capacity. It seemed to be working OK, until I got into sorting a huge pile of photos. Then things slowed right down, because of overheating, I think.
I had a PCI-Express graphics card lying around, which I bought for my previous motherboard - I never realized that it (Gigabyte GA-MA69VM-S2) already had integrated graphics until I tried adding the card in a case that it wouldn't fit! I did know that my new mobo (Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H) had integrated graphics, and have been using them since installing the board.
Then I thought, why not make use of the card, it will probably speed things up. I hadn't noticed much difference until I tried sorting 500 photos with Irfanview, which is usually pretty zippy at loading pictures and generating thumbnails. Last night it was taking ages to do either. (Yes, I know I should find a better way of sorting my photos.)
Opening up the case, I sensed straight away that things were not too cool around the graphics card or the motherboard's "northbridge" chip. Both use passive cooling (big heatsink, no fan), which I like, because it's quiet. And quiet means good. I like my latest PC build because I can't always tell if it's switched on or not unless I check the little green power indicator.
After a bit of fishing around in Google, I found a system monitor that would let me see the temperatures while the system is running. I used to like Motherboard Monitor, but it hasn't been updated for years, so I didn't want to spend more time trying it out. I came across Speedfan, which isn't so convenient to configure but which did identify my sensors and give me useful readings very quickly. Both CPU cores very respectable at 43C or so, but the Northbridge was reading 90C - that's hot.
So I tried the "engineering solution" - power up one of those fans built in to the front of the case. Next to no difference in the problem area, though the hard disks cooled a little. And noise, nasty, nasty, nasty noise. Options: install a (quiet) exhaust fan, which would probably cool the components in question. Or remove the graphics card and go back to integrated graphics and 256MB less memory available.
You guessed right, I reverted to integrated graphics and disconnected the fan. I'm back to peace and quiet.Actually, the temperatures read pretty much the same - it turns out the sensor on the northbridge chip may be unreliable. But the photos are loading faster.
Possible learning point: "ain't broke, don't fix it". Well, that had occurred to me in the first place, but y'know, some of us just gotta fiddle. Sometimes you don't know what's broke until you fix it, after all.