Need a different case

[Grogan]

Vertically mounting the GPU, the bracket screws (where the tang screws onto the case) are simply vertical

I sure wouldn't want a riser board, I would have thought shielded (e.g braiding) cabling with a pci-E connection on the end would be more sensible for connecting to the board.

I wasn't planning on doing that anyway, I just noticed the facility for it on my case. About the only thing I could appreciate about it (while thinking it would be cabling) is that there are always things on your motherboard, connections etc. you can't use because of the video card taking up so much room on the board (and the heat that transfers to the PCI-E slot etc.) But a daughter board would get in the way just the same.

[Grogan]

Well, I have the Fractal Focus case all packed up in the box, with screws and accessories...

Ready to give to somebody I don't like!

[Grogan]

jumping jehovajeebus on fucking stilts! I'm trying to figure out why none of the fans connected to the fan hub on the case are working.

It's because the "fan" connector is just for PWM, and it gets its power from a "sata" connector that will have to connect to the PSU. Fuck, that's stupid. I saw the SATA power connector in the bundle there and thought it was for convenience (you can mount SATA SSD;'s back there, there are mounting plates but no... it's to power the fan hub. This is going to be difficult now with the PSU installed, getting in there to attach a SATA power cable.

[Grogan]

I mounted the PSU upside down this time, because it looks like it would cook inside that enclosure. It has holes in the bottom of the case for that, with a screen that slides out from the back. I'll just have to remember to clean it. The PSU actually had little rubber feet on the top (two of them, diagonally), that look like there are there for that very purpose, to keep it a few mm from a surface.

[Zema Bus]

I bet some people have ended up drilling out the rivets holding those enclosures in place

[Grogan]

I thought about it. Not only is it dumb to enclose it like that, but it makes using a normal, front connecting power supply difficult. It's way in there and you have to get your cables connected before you put it in (I had difficulty attaching even a SATA power connector to it after the fact with it in the enclosure already). Also, with this big case, that enclosure takes a lot of length away from your cables. You have to get PSU cable extenders if you want to be able to route your cables nicely in this big case. The distance from the PSU inside that enclosure makes the PSU connector cables too short. I had trouble even getting the cables up there, there was only one opening I could go through (and I didn't have enough length to not go through an opening in the enclosure).

That may be a project for another day, get PSU cable extenders so I can run those CPU power cables at the back. OR, just bite the bullet and buy a Corsair PSU with the connectors on the side. That would have been super easy... and it was the PSU I was going to buy in the first place, but didn't because of that Fractal Focus case.

[Grogan]

By the way, I've been watching some videos from that Jayz2cents guy (the "this has to stop" motherboard settings guy), he's really good. I normally don't have time for self appointed assholes on youtube, but this guy is smart, speaks well and keeps my attention. He doesn't wax much, but when he does it's brief and mildly entertaining.

It's not that uncommon for a motherboard to not fit right in a case you might buy, I guess. In the Fractal case, my board was too narrow (rear ports about half an inch inside the case and no way to put on an ioshield). I watched him start a build for a friend, it was going to be "Mega Man" themed... a retro arcade game, so it was a white case from NZXT that he was going to decorate. The build was centered around this, so he had to choose stuff accordingly. The first ATX board he put in was too wide to even go in the case (I think it was Asus, which he hates now lol). So he put in an MSI board (that case probably would have been good for my board... and that Asus board would have probably fit in the Fractal Focus case nicely lol!)

Anyway, this "mega man" build is a bit of a saga, stretching several videos and mentioned in others. It was pretty fancy, he built his own liquid cooling system using this plastic tubing with elbows and fittings. I never saw it in use (might view some more), but it would have looked cool with LED's shining on it. Everything was cooled with that, the big humfucker video card even had a water cooling block on it. So the tubing was like cool steam punk waterworks (think of the hacking in bioshock once the LEDs shine on it lol!)

In one video, he inadvertently destroyed that MSI board. He put the system all together (didn't mount the cooler part on the CPU yet) without testing anything. He then decided that he shouldn't do that, because he wouldn't want to have to dismantle his liquid apparatus and purge and drip fluids etc. So he just hooked up a temporary AIO liquid cooler. I guess he hadn't finished connecting the backing plate from the original, and it was hanging down on one screw, and it shorted and instantly fried the board lol

[Zema Bus]

I enjoy watching his videos, I think it's been 2 years since I first discovered his channel. He lives near my older sister and brother-in-law, and they frequent the same MicroCenter store that he often goes to. They watch his videos too, I'm waiting for the day when they tell me they met him there lol!

Another hardware channel I've been watching for a long time is GamersNexus.

[Grogan]

I saw that Microcenter advertised, that looks like an awesome place to shop. We don't have shit that elabourate here. You could go in there with a shopping cart and get everything you need for a build... even pay them to do it for you while you wait. I've got to say, that is one thing I do not enjoy doing... to me hardware is for doing interesting things with software. People who know the cases and know the boards and shit can do it in minutes, where it takes me hours of knuckle scraping bullshit.

Yes, I watch a bit of Steve too. (that was the guy I mistook for that linus tech tips arsehole because of some back and forth). I recently saw a few videos with a saga with Asus overvolting and catastrophically destroying AMD CPUs (they won't take that, like Intel) sometimes with a pop, and the boards too when a low resistance short occurs (the board can keep supplying current under that condition, and they have poor overcurrent protection). Asus (mostly... it was still slightly overvolting) fixed it with a "beta bios update" and stipulated that installing it voided your warranty. Of course it wouldn't really, if you sued them, but...

Anyway, what was impressive is that they got samples of boards and failed CPUs (bought, from people, in lieu of them sending it back for RMA so they could examine it), bought new hardware and duplicated the problem, de-soldered CPUs and took pictures of burned up substrate (they measured 200C temperatures), consulted experts (that they couldn't name... insiders), contracted a lab for detailed analysis (with electron microscopes and shit). Asus couldn't gaslight anymore and wanted to send a representative to meet with them, but balked when they said they were going to record it.

If something is going to fail, best that it fails while you can still send it back to Amazon or Newegg etc. because companies like Asus are cunts with RMAs.

[Zema Bus]

Yeah I've heard lots of horror stories from people trying to do an RMA with those companies. I got lucky when my Radeon 7 card died, XFX refunded the full price I paid. This was during the video card shortage so that may be why they didn't send me a replacement card.

[Grogan]

Fuck... I still have the same problem in this case. I didn't think so until now, but I was shut down (but PSU switch still on) and was removing the covers to install another fan today and the PC started up by itself. I would have touched both sides of the case while doing that, but not the top, the power button is way up there. Afterwards I booted up just to login prompt so there wouldn't be much shit running and touched the top of the case. Boom, black screen, power still on but system halted (needs complete power off and hold the power button to drain capacitors) same as before.

The board has a short. I don't think it's me causing it, not in 2 cases, and not likely in this proper case. Fucking MSI... I'm going to have to tear this down a third time now. I'm just going to order a better board and send this one back for refund.

I'm sorry I ever started this project. I was all happy with my fans and everything and now I've got that sick feeling in my gut again.

The problem is easier to understand now. Discharge to ground affecting power switch circuit, disrupting or sending spurious signal.

[Grogan]

Damn, no, it's only when I have a static charge. If I discharge myself I can't duplicate the spontaneous power up, or the disruption if it's already running.

So I'm back to my original hypothesis. This board must have some sort of EM sensitivity in that it can't tolerate a static discharge to ground. Everything else seems fine... unless I discharge static to the case (usually with both hands). So it is easy to avoid. It's also likely that it's not actually "frying" anything, it's probably the power signal being disrupted.

I have to act quickly if I want to return the board to Amazon, but I think I'm going to inquire at the MSI forums. They won't all be defenders.

P.S. What also corroborates my original hypothesis: The metal top panel of the case isn't really even connected to the frame in this case (that's why I was so surprised to see this again). It sits there in those rubber nipple mounts in PLASTIC, with a big air gap between the plastic filter screen and the top fans below it. It is, however, very near the power switch (but couldn't be making electrical contact). It's got to be some EMI.

[Zema Bus]

The standoffs should ground the motherboard from the case, and the power supply should be grounded to the wall socket. I wonder if it could be the power supply. I have experienced static shocks when touching a computer but it never had any impact on it that I can recall.

[Grogan]

Yeah, another reason I'm replacing the PSU. (rule that out).

[Grogan]

Guess what the ESD/EMI problem was all along? That's right, the video card. Something on it must have been shorting to ground.

I know it's fixed for real now, I can shuffle my feet on the carpet, walk up on the vinyl mat, touch the computer with both hands... snap. Nothing happens and I tried it several times. No keyboard lights blinking, the ESD just goes to ground and nothing is affected.

Yes, I thought of it. However, I ruled the video card behaviour out as a systemic symptom of the ESD/EMI problem (display going down etc.) Since the card was working perfectly. Jeeze, I had very stable gaming up until the final failure.

In the past few days, the behaviour changed a bit. It got so that if I touched my metal table underneath the keyboard, the caps lock, scroll lock and numlock lights would blink in unison. This also occurred when I touched the computer (with or without fatal disruption).

Also a symptom that seems to be gone, while typing fast sometimes I'd get a missed keystroke. I'm a touch typer, I watch the screen not the keyboard but out of the corner of my eye I'd see keyboard lights blinking as my keystroke doesn't appear. Sometimes even the mouse LED would pulse (it can't be turned off, only turned down so it doesn't illuminate) when this happened. I was blaming that on the PS2 to USB converter, thinking it might be a bit gimmicky.

Oh well, the Antec PSU and the Fractal Focus case sucked for this build anyway. The case wasn't expensive, the PSU I returned as defective by design, but THIS? I'm going to need Lanacaine on my arsehole. I'm stuck with it. Maybe I can navigate Asrock's warranty return, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm going to get a shitty refurb in return that I'm never going to trust. Maybe I can sell it to some coin mining shitbird for a couple hundred bucks.

[Grogan]

I spoke too soon on the keyboard light ESD thing. While I haven't had the behaviour while sitting at it typing (pretty sure that's not going to happen anymore, it would have by now), when I came back from being out, I walked up and discharged underneath the keyboard and the 3 lock status lights blinked. The computer was shut off (not leaving anything running unattended for very long at this time), but there's standby power for USB.

How does that even happen. A metal table frame, with half an inch of plywood on top (and I've been using this table for 30 years, it's a good solid folding table). A heavy plastic keyboard housing (think 1986). I didn't even feel a prickle when I touched the metal frame underneath, yet the keyboard lights blinked. I guess things don't have to be conductors, just transfer electrons between materials. For the lights to blink, that's got to be causing a signal interpreted as an interrupt lol

While there's nothing that will turn the PC on while it's shut right down, that standby power would still remain for resuming from suspend and hibernate modes.

[Zema Bus]

It is weird. I've often had monitors briefly shutoff without even coming into contact with them or the table they were on, just by coming within a few feet of them.