New Desktop Computer - Part 8 (The Tear-down))

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Continued from viewtopic.php?p=2424221#p2424221.

Since the previous thread is scheduled to automagically age out and close, I will be continuing the computer build in this thread once I build up the courage (and my stupid back cooperates) to start removing the parts that will go into the new, modified case (maybe in a couple of days?; I'm such a coward ).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It's currently raining outside (thank goodness it's not raining inside!) and humidity level is going up. It will get to the upper 60s% by tomorrow morning when the rain will taper off and it will still be in the upper 50s% by noon, so, if I can drag my old, aching carcass out of bed tomorrow morning, it will be an ideal time to start the tear-down. High humidity = low potential (pun intended) for ESD (ElectroStatic Discharge). The part of the teardown with the highest pucker factor will be removing the CPU cooler from the CPU.

There will be a young Linux Official supervising the job from here on out.

While Tux, Jr. will satiate my penchant for whimsy, once the tear-down and relocation to the new case has been completed, this handsome, intelligent looking young lad will then permanently assume a vital role in protecting a vital part of the computer from the ravages of gravity (and look adorable while doing it).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Well, the tear-down went far better than I had expected...up to a point.,

This is the inside of the original computer case before I removed the graphics card and the CPU fan shroud.

And this is how it looks after their removal.

I was expecting to have to struggle to get the CPU cooler to separate from the CPU without yanking it out of its socket but it came out quite easily. Color me pleasantly surprised. However, I was disappointed to see what a sloppy job System 76 did applying the TIM (Thermal Interface Material aka thermal paste, aka paste).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This is a closer view of the mess on the CPU.

This is how it looks on the contact plate on the CPU cooler.

Yeesh! Cleaning that up is going to be "fun", especially on the top of the CPU.

The mounting bars located by the sides of the CPU and socket will need to be replaced with one that will mount above and below the CPU and socket, assuming the larger cooler I want to install will fit.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I was expecting the two 8 pin CPU power connectors and the 24 pin connector to be a bear to remove. They weren't easy but they were far less difficult than I expected. The adapter that holds the connectors for the front panel switches and pilot LEDs came off easily.

Now that all the cables were disconnected, all that was left was to remove the nine screws holding down the MOBO (MOtherBOard). System 76 hired the World's weakest wimp to tighten the screws, an incredibly under-powered power screwdriver was used to tighten the screws, or both. Some of the screws were actually loose and the rest were barely snug. Such wonderful QC, System 76.

One screw was a bit of a chore to get to.

I had to remove the top bar of the chassis to be able to get a straight enough shot at it with a screwdriver.

Yet another example of system 76's exceptional engineering [/sarcasm].

I salvaged the EVGA PSU and its cables for possible use in a future build. I'm not a fan of EVGA. They make good products but their customer "service" is nonexistent.

I thought about salvaging the fans but, besides them being orphans (I prefer using all the same fans in a computer; it makes setting fan curves much easier), the two in the CPU fan shroud were a PITA to get to (I just love how System 76 makes parts so accessible [/sarcasm]) I just didn't feel like bothering so I left the bottom intake fan in and reinstalled the fan shroud and its fans. I also reinstalled the graphics card anti-sag bracket, then, after putting the 2.5" drive cage and System 76's wonderful I/O board in a box placed inside the case, I buttoned up the case and set it by the back door to go out to my shed later (it's too wet and muddy right now).

This is a shot of the filter for the sole intake fan for the System 76 case. It was hard to get the shot because the flash would wash everything out but that is only a week's worth of dust.

I ran into one serious problem that has me mad enough to chew rebar...no, make that I-beams, and spit out sewing needles. Instead of designing the case to use the perfectly good rear I/O shield that comes with MOBOs, the magnificent, monumental morons at System 76 custom made one of their own which will fit only on their misbegotten case. Before I can install the MOBO in the new case, I'm going to have to hunt down the correct I/O shield. I did a quick search on the "interwebs" but came up with bupkis.

In the meantime, once I get some rest (I didn't sleep well last night) and cool down some, I'll need to clean off the old TIM (joy ) and start checking clearances for the new CPU cooler. I also want to replace the factory SSD heat sinks on the MOBO that only contact the chips on top of the SSDs with ones that will contact the chips on both sides but, since they are taller, I'll have to check to make sure they will clear the replacement CPU cooler and the graphics card (the latter being the one I'm most worried about).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Even though it was unlikely, I didn't want to give the TIM a chance to dry out in the open air or catch any dust, so after resting for a bit, I went to work cleaning the gunk off the CPU. And, believe me, that was an eye-crossing chore for my old eyes (my neck and upper back weren't too thrilled, either)!

These are the cleaners I used to degunk the CPU.

Don't believe the big bottle. I keep refilling it from a gallon jug of 99% IPA (IsoPropyl Alcohol, not India Pale Ale). It's cheaper in bulk.


I used these with the alky, etc. when cleaning out the little nooks and crannies.

That box was packed full when I started. I also cut a full sheet blue paper shop towel into small squares and used them all up.

It took me an hour of nerve wracking, painstaking work to get the CPU to look like this. My eyes are still crossed after staring at the nooks and crannies with a lighted magnifier.

I'll still need to go over it again when I'm ready to permanently install the new cooler but for now, this will do.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Although I don't plan on use a paste type TIM when I install the new cooler (more on that later), I picked up a couple of these little silicone gizmos.

They go around the CPU and plug the nooks and crannies so they don't get filled with TIM that gets "squoze" out when tightening down the CPU cooler. They also make it a lot easier to clean up the "squoze" out TIM after the cooler has been removed, especially when too much TIM was used. As I mentioned earlier, I don't plan on using a paste TIM but it will be handy to have the gizmo in place if I have to resort to paste. Here, I've installed one (it bites my ample asset that I so often have to buy two or more of things when I need only one ).

The next time I get ambitious (maybe even today...then again, maybe not). I'm going to remove those two mounting bars and replace them with the ones for the new cooler. That should be fairly easy (yeah, I know, famous last words).

[Joss]

Stupid star shaped CPUs.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Stupid star shaped CPUs.

I agree but, then again, if AMD hadn't made the IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader) with that wacky shape, the IHS and the chips under the IHS would have had to have been quite a bit larger to accommodate the little components that are on the board in the notches they look like specks on the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) inside the notches in the photo. The CPUs and sockets are already pretty large and getting many coolers to mount on them might prove...ah..."challenging".

I was glad the CPU didn't get pulled out of the socket when I removed the CPU cooler. AMD switched to LGA (Landed Grid Array) sockets and pins on the AM5 7000 series CPUs (they are now like the Intel CPUs and sockets ) with the pins in the sockets and those pins are unbelievably delicate; just looking at them wrong can bend or break them. If I hadn't damaged the pins ripping the CPU out of the socket with the cooler, there was a good chance my shaky old hands would have when reseating the CPU.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I removed the mounting bars for the original CPU cooler and replaced them with the ones for the larger cooler. This...

...is now this.

I put the original hardware I removed into the bag the new hardware came and put it with the original cooler. I need to find a box to put that cooler and hardware into just in case I ever need it again (such as if the replacement cooler doesn't work out).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Next on the list is new heat sinks for the SSDS. The stock SSD heat sinks on the MOBO only contact chips on the top of an SSD. That's fine for single sided SSDs but the SSDs I'm using have chips on both sides so it would be desirable to have heat sinks that contacted the chips on both sides of the SSD.

The ribbed aluminum strip near the top of the photo and the big aluminum plate under the PCIe socket under the strip are the heat sinks.

I started by removing the top heat sink. This is the heat sink I'm going to use and the SSD that will go into it.

After removing the plastic protector strip from the thermal pad, the SSD went into the trough-like thingy. Then, after the plastic strip was removed from the top half, it was set on top of the SSD and attached with four teency weency screws.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The teency weency screws at the top of the photo are what holds the new heat sink together.

I actually didn't permanently assemble the heat sink/SSD combo until after I had temporarily put it together without removing the plastic protector strips so I could make sure the combo would fit on the MOBO. It almost didn't (more on that shortly).

The left one of the two doohickeys at the bottom of the photo is an original tool free standoff that holds an SSD in place. It has a latch that gets flipped up to remove the SSD and flipped down to secure it. It won't work with the added thickness of the heat sink so I had to replace it with a conventional standoff, the thingamabob on the lower right, that uses a small screw to hold down the SSD.

When I first tried to install the heatsink/SSD combo, it ran afoul of the latch that secures the graphics card. In this photo, the latch (the dark gray plastic thingy) just barely clears one of the copper heat pipes in the heat sink.

That's because I filed off a small amount of the latch. In this wonderful photo (/sarcasm), I marked a silver line on the latch to show how much I needed to file off.

I put some tape sticky side up under it to catch the filings. They were plastic filings but why take chances? What I removed was small enough and in a low stress enough area I'm sure I didn't weaken it any. I didn't get any photos of it but I plugged in the graphics card to make sure it cleared the heatsink/SSD combo (it did).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I unboxed the replacement CPU cooler and, without removing the plastic cap on the contact plate, I set it on top of the CPU to make sure it wouldn't run afoul of the new heat sink/SSD combo. It's kinda hard to see whats going on but here is a view from below the cooler and one from the side of the MOBO.

There is enough room around the heatsink/SSD combo when the graphics card is removed (which is fairly easy), getting to the heat sink/SSD combo will be fairly easy.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This is one of the heat sinks I wanted to use for the remaining SSDs.

However, when I removed the stock heat sink from the MOBO...

...the spaces between the SSDs was too narrow to allow the heat sinks to fit. Oh, well, back to Amazon they go. These SSDs are just for data storage and reading the data, such as watching movies, so they won't be generating as much heat as the SSD with the OS also on it. Most of the heat on an SSD comes from the controller chip, which is mounted on the top of the SSD so not getting additional cooling for the bottom chips, while disappointing, isn't going to be enough of a problem to worry about it.

Next will be to temporarily set the MOBO into the new case and check to see if the CPU cooler will clear everything but that will have to keep 'til another day; my tired hurts. I'm considering adding a second fan to the cooler but I want to make sure there is enough room first.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I put the original (cooler) hardware I removed into the bag the new hardware came (in) and put it with the original cooler. I need to find a box to put that cooler and hardware into just in case I ever need it again (such as if the replacement cooler doesn't work out.

I had an extra NH-D15S cooler box (the same cooler I'm swapping into the new case) because I had bent the cooler that came in it and discarded it (the cooler I have now was a replacement) so, since Noctua has nearly bullet proof packaging, I decided to use that box for the NH-U12S cooler that system 76 had installed in the desktop computer.

For some reason, I never took a photo of the two coolers side by side so I took a quick snap before packaging up the NH-U12S.

The cooler on the left is the one I'm replacing on the right with. I have only one fan installed on the one on the left because the other fan will get in the way of the mounting screws. The missing fan gets clipped to the right side of the left tower, same as it is on the right tower, after installing the cooler onto the CPU. Some people like to add a third fan on the left side of the left tower (I'll admit it looks more symmetrical that way) but studies I've seen say it doesn't increase cooling any and adds a bit more fan noise (not to mention a bit more weight; those Bequiets are boat anchors).

One thing that bites my ample asset is the AMD AM5 7000 series CPUs are little furnaces and need quite a bit of cooling. The NH-U12A is a better cooler and comes with two fans, which System 76 could have removed and installed in their CPU cooler shroud, which would have resulted in matched fans, dramatically simplifying setting fan curves. Instead they went with the somewhat inferior DH-U12S which comes with only one fan, then mismatched it up with a Bequiet in the CPU cooler shroud which, because they ran them through a hub, caused the mismatched fans to have to run the same fan curve, resulted in mismatched fan operation that couldn't be adjusted (and, if not using POP!_OS, also resulted in the fans always running full speed ).

The NH-U12A is $120 USD on Amazon. The NH-U12S is $75 USD. The Bequiet fan they used normally sells for $20. For only $25 USD more, they could have had a superior cooler that came with two fans that the CPU desperately needed (and even that one might not have been enough). The much better NH-D15 is only $110 USD, only $15 USD more although they would have had to redesigned the cooler shroud to accommodate the larger cooler and fans (or designed it that way in the first place!). My eyes are hurting from all the rolling they have been doing.

Enough for that rant. Two fans on the NF-U12S I removed may be overkill but I had extra fan clips (Noctua gave me a bunch of them a decade or so back when I asked for an extra pair) and some extra older Phanteks 120mm fans knocking about, so, to protect the cooler fins more than anything else, I installed them on the cooler, then rearranged the packing materials (and added some) in the old NH-D15S box, stuffed the cooler and mounting kit in the box, relabeled the box, and put it away for possible future use (or I might give it away).

And now for bad news. I've been having one "heckuva" time finding a replacement I/O shield for the MOBO. I couldn't find jack on Gigabyte's website (not surprising since the shield is normally permanently installed on the MOBO). I've sent an inquiry to System 76 to see if they have any knocking about but I'm not holding my breath.

I tried seeing if I could find a used MOBO I could cannibalize a shield from but was shocked to find the used ones were going for 75%-100% the cost of new boards. I did find a basket case for only $60 on Fleabay, though. And, by basket case, I mean just that. Some clown removed all the heat sinks, CPU socket retention, clip, etc. including a rear I/O shield and left them loose in the box with the stripped down MOBO. The guy selling it is unavailable for ten days so it wouldn't get delivered until the 20th of the month! It's a bit pricey for what I need but five others were watching it (which may or may not be true) so, considering how hard of a time I was having finding one, I decided to pull the trigger on it before someone else did rather than take a chance System 76 would have one.

So other than checking for clearances and making final adjustments to cable management, I'm down to hurry up and wait. (Dang but my eyes hurt from all the rolling!)

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I ran into one serious problem that has me mad enough to chew rebar...no, make that I-beams, and spit out sewing needles. Instead of designing the case to use the perfectly good rear I/O shield that comes with MOBOs, the magnificent, monumental morons at System 76 custom made one of their own which will fit only on their misbegotten case. Before I can install the MOBO in the new case, I'm going to have to hunt down the correct I/O shield. I did a quick search on the "interwebs" but came up with bupkis...

...And now for bad news. I've been having one "heckuva" time finding a replacement I/O shield for the MOBO. I couldn't find jack on Gigabyte's website (not surprising since the shield is normally permanently installed on the MOBO). I've sent an inquiry to System 76 to see if they have any knocking about but I'm not holding my breath.

I tried seeing if I could find a used MOBO I could cannibalize a shield from but was shocked to find the used ones were going for 75%-100% of new boards. I did find a basket case for only $60 on Fleabay, though. And, by basket case, I mean just that. Some clown removed all the heat sinks, CPU socket retention, clip, etc. and a rear I/O shield and left them loose in the box with the stripped down MOBO. The guy selling it is unavailable for ten days so it wouldn't get delivered until the 20th of the month! It's a bit pricey for what I need but five others were watching it (which may or may not be true) so, considering how hard of a time I was having finding one, I decided to pull the trigger on it before someone else did rather than take a chance System 76 would have one...

I heard back from System 76 and they have discontinued using that board so they don't have any rear I/O shields for it. Dang but they discontinue things fast!

It's a good thing I pulled the trigger on the basket case on eBay. Now, it's hurry up and wait.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Since the tear down is complete and, once I have all the parts ready (I'm still waiting on the rear I/O shield and still need to sleeve the SATA data cables), I will continue work on the computer in the next part, The Installation ( viewtopic.php?t=413501 ).

[Dullard du Jour]

Regarding those Sabrent M.2 PCIE SSD, are you still happy with them? They are on the top of my list as replacements for my failing 970 Samsungs.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Regarding those Sabrent M.2 PCIE SSD, are you still happy with them? They are on the top of my list as replacements for my failing 970 Samsungs.

So far, so good. The three data ones I put in the new computer had been running pretty much 24/7 since last summer when I bought it until I tore down the computer. I hadn't run the one I put the OS and an additional data partition on yet since I didn't install it until after the tear-down.

I have this SSD's predecessor, the original QLC version (the ones I bought for the new computer are TLC, better than QLC), that's been running in my laptop as a data drive since December of 2021 without a hiccup. I replaced the 512GB Sammy 970 boot drive in my laptop with an 8TB Sabrent (the newer TLC version) about a month or two ago and it's been running fine. I haven't noticed any performance difference between the two (keep in mind I'm not a gamer).

It's curious you're having trouble with the Sammy 970s. I have several 512GB 970 Pros that have worked fine for me. Starting almost four years ago, I was swapping out three of them as boot drives in my laptop in rotation monthly for a while until I decided the backup program I was using was reliable and kept using the same one until I replaced it with an 8TB Sabrent (TLC) to get more capacity. In my not so humble opinion, the Sammy 970s were the last good SSD they came out with. They were MLC. Samsung lost me for NVMe drives when the 980 Pros came out as TLC.

It wasn't until later that the word came out that the 980s came out with buggy firmware that needed replacing. You would think that Samsung would have learned their lesson by the time the 990s came out but, nope, those were also buggy as a flop house bed due to bad firmware.

I recently stocked up on 8TB 870 QVOS to make sure I would have enough for my two active computers (plus a couple spares) before they could come out with newer model that, based on recent history, would probably also have buggy firmware. I should have enough to hold me for a few years, hopefully until someone else comes out with bigger SSDS, both NVme and 2.5" SATA. I'm now through with Samsung!

Edit: I do have one complaint about the Sabrents: their SMART doesn't work well with Linux. I can't get temperature data while they are running.

[Dullard du Jour]

My 970's have serial numbers that fall in the batch of faulty FW. I have not been able to flash a new FW. The errors will continue to clock up, until they reach a number and the SSD will no longer work. Even now SMART does not work.

What I have discovered about these NMVe drives is that are no guarantees. It seems the manufacturers are prone to swap controllers and memory during various production runs, yet you will never see them do a news flash about that. We think we are buying a board with a Phison controller and it may not be, or may be a hobbled version of the controller.

I am going to order the Sabrent boards today, I am thinking about ordering the card/slot adapter where I can put a board in the PCIE slot.