Mach II GT Options

[Rockin]

Well after owning this Mach II GT for a few months now, ive finally got around to switching it on for the first time.

Its a Lian Li pc 60 top with matching base unit. Firstly i removed the cover to the condensor. The dust, hair and god knows what was about an inch thick! So thats all removed now. Cant believe any air could have possibly got through that lot

Fired it up and it became apparant that the temp sensor is waay off. At room temps it reported -10C and when it had fully got down to its max cooling under no load, it reported -80C Is that just a dodgy temp sensor or dodgy controller board? hope its just the sensor. Anyway the head frosted up nicely

Got sick of waiting for the crossfire boards and with this fx55 SD sat doing nothing so got a Neo2 on its way to me. Should have it all installed for the LAN hopefully or i wont have a rig to use. Only got a 9800pro to use in it so no big benchie results just yet

Pics to follow when i get some batteries for the cam

[Marci]

Righty then.... temp sensor. That sounds like a unit either I've repaired, or have acted as advisor on the method for the repair.

Basics being, when the temp sensor popped, generally the unit wouldn't read cold enough. There was a solution for this. Make it read colder than it should. Easy way - take a bog standard temp sensor and attach (ie: budget temp probe stylee). So yes, the reading is way off but it's enough to get it into the minus temps and convince the controller that nothing is wrong.

Few things you can do to try and get it back inline. Thermisters work on resistance. Add a variable resistor onto one wire of the probe and twiddle whilst watching temps... find out what a stock GT generally runs at when not connected to CPU after xx amount of time. Set yours running under same conditions (same ambient if poss) and after the same xx amount of time, twiddle that resistor til your temp matches.

If ambient differs, then for every 1 deg change in ambient, effect a 2 deg increase in evap temps in the same direction.

[Rockin]

Thanks for that. It was Harry's old unit. Left it running for 20 mins and came back to find a nice lump of frost on the head

New mobos coming tomorrow, then its time to get the FX under the freezer. Will get some batterys and take some pics

[Rockin]

Installed the mobo in the prommi today. Now i know why ive been putting it off for the last few months, anyways its finally done.

Havent got a HDD yet but boooted up into bios to check it was all working. Got a cpu temp reading in bios (yes i know it means nothing) of 37C at stock speeds 200 x 13, raised the multi upto 14, then 15 and then 16 (all on stock volts) and it sits in bios at 3200 with 1.42v. Temps in bios go upto 40C.

When i get a HDD sorted, then install windows, i should be able to get a decent beta bios to allow more volts

Also want a few more washers under the mounting screws cos im not satisfied that i have good enough contact.

With a bit of luck, it should all be installed for the LAN, if not i will be a spectator with a case of beer

[Rockin]

Is this normal cos im not sure.

The evap head is actually warm and it you touch the head mounting screws they feel real warm (ok they have sealing string on them) I dont think it is quite right

The last Mach i had, the head was real cold and under no load you could get condensation appearing if it was left idling for long periods.

The evap readin on the Mach is -76c which i know is miles out. In bios its reporting 40c idle too

[FreeWill]

Yep, the evap. head is warm because of the heaters in them - to reduce the chances of condensation forming!

[Rockin]

Strange how the old one didnt though unless the heaters weren't working maybe.

Anyway it seems pretty stable which is the main thing. Currently running F@H for the last 3 hours at 3.2ghz. Will hitch it up to 3.3ghz later when i get in and leave it all night to see how it goes

[Marci]

If controller is set to Turbo then heaters turn off. If controller is set to normal then heaters are turned on, which produces a heated head and screws.

The evap readin on the Mach is -76c which i know is miles out. In bios its reporting 40c idle too

Now that ain't good. Should either be reading as 24x deg C or 0 deg C or a - figure. Certainly shouldn't be giving 30's / 40's readings.

S'either a TERRIBLE mount (unlikely) or the unit has a more serious issue.

Whack fans on turbo, thus killing heaters and leave it to idle. See if you get your condensation / cold head feeling back again...

Need to find out exactly what that CPUs running at (ballpark)... confirm with other Neo2 owners what temps they see when running phasechange - ie: can board read - temps or not etc etc.

Next tip to test whether mounting - move unit up side of a wall so mobotray side of case is up against the wall. Take side panel off. Grab evap head... lean on it so your pushing head down onto CPU, with wall on opposite side to give u summat to go against / stop rig falling over. See if CPU temp decreases.

If you have any waterblocks knocking about, nylon washers off the mounting kits - use those.

[Rockin]

Well the mobo or the chip has died

Hot flashed the bios and still wont boot up. Displaying all the signs of a dead bios (fans spinning on power up but nothing)

Just before it died it kept restarting when trying to boot. It would boot into safe mode only so tried a fresh install but kept rebooting during the install. Stuck everything to stock settings but still the same. Just stripping the mobo out now to check for possible condensation probs. Will report back later

[Rockin]

Whack fans on turbo, thus killing heaters and leave it to idle. See if you get your condensation / cold head feeling back again...

[snapback]131562[/snapback]

I was running it on turbo and got no condensation or cold head feeling. It was completely stable at 3.2ghz 100% for the last 12 hours.

I checked the mount too and that was ok

[Marci]

Prommi's futzed d00d. Get it to the shop next week and I'll cast me eye over it...

So, it freezes up nicely when not connected to PC... but with load performs like a bag-o-poo. Generally indicative of either fans not working on evaporator or refrigerant leak. I'll assume you've already had your head inside to make sure BOTH fans are going... so I'll in turn also assume it's got a leak somewhere.

[Rockin]

Cheers for that.

Just removed mobo n cleaned all the string off. No bent pins on the chip, gonna whack a heatsink on it and pray

[Marci]

Quick n easy leack check, run Prommi on it's own, work your way round the tubing with yer ear and see if you can here a typical air-escaping noise at any particular point. If you find such point, slice insulation with craft knife and roll back. Spray some soapy water on, see if it blows bubbles or sucks it in. If it sucks it in, turn off and leave it off until repair can be done (cos it's just sucked in a load of water which will need purging unless it's drier is in good nick). If it blows bubbles then leak is on high side and is blowing out.

[Rockin]

W00T!!! it booted on air!

chip n mobo not dead

[Gav2k]

but your mach2 is. we have a certain member that will fix it for you.

[Gray_Mole]

-76 sounds awful cold for a standard GT. maybe for a 507'd GT but not on 404.

The 40c mobo reading is normal if you're using an older bios for your Neo2. The newer bios's will report down to around -13 (like mine does) but not any lower.

If it's saying -76 it's either some kind of probe problem, or it's got a little leak and it's starting to get colder. Colder, but less wattage capability.

Run it on it's own. Does it seem to take longer to get down to temp?

When you had it on there, going by the display, could it seem to hold up to the load?

And yeah, if you like, I'm more than happy to help as well. If Marci has a look and figures it's in need of leaktesting and yadda yadda, I'm here for ya. I just got in a load of stuf from the supplier, and my flu is finally starting to calm down a little. Well, I can eat now anyway.


Gray

[Rockin]

Yeah the bios used was the stock bios that the mobo came with.

It got down to to temp real quick, after about 30 secs it was dropping around 1C every second. It held temps ok too. At the max i ran it (3.2ghz) the display went from -76ish to -71C with 1.55v to the core.

Thanks for the offer Gray, im sure we will be meeting up pretty soon

Right it think the mobo is not happy. I can boot into bios but as soon as i save the settings to make it boot from the cd, it appears to save and reboot as normal but keeps rebooting and doesnt get into bios at all. Only way to correct this is to clear cmos

This is running on air now

[Rockin]

Its trying to install windows but reboots during the setup. Now ive changed the ram, underclocked the cpu from 2600mhz to 2000mhz, still getting the same

Just got a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL message with STOP: 0X0000000A (0X00000008, 0X00000002, 0X00000001, 0X807CAA66) message

[Marci]

Well, that can only be a driver issue of some sort... am assuming all you have in is CPU, RAM, GPU, MOBO, HDD, and Optical Drive...?

If optical drive is DVD, change for non-DVD drive (ie: CD or CD-RW)
If HDD is SATA, head for different drivers for SATA Controller... check a few older revisions / ensure revision you're using matches bios you're using.

Update mobo bios via old bootdisk method if can't get windows on... seem to recall a few folks having issues with NEO2 and stock bios when it came to installing windows...

Hell, if yer bored, rag the rig over now and I'll have a look - got plenty of alternative bits to swap in and out here... just don't leave it too late...

[Marci]

Oh aye, and set command rate to 2T and cas timings to bySPD if u haven't already... restore CPU to stock clocks... s'not a processor issue, am fairly convinced of that...

Handy reference for MS STOP messages - http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.php