Black screens - Anyone can figure why?

[tcn]

Hi,

Since I don't believe in the saying: "If it ain't broke, don't touch it", I decided to change my Noctua NH-C12P SE14 for a water cooled solution in order to leave more space to my Northbridge to breathe.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte X48-DS5, CPU is a Q9550s; the whole is overclocked 34%. I added a Corsair H80 in a Cooler Master HAF 932 case. No, the H80 does not have the LGA 775 compatibility problem seated as it is. CPU temps are fine. I added a 40mm fan on the South and Northbridge and of the latter I removed the top plate and bent some fins (fins were bent to glue the top plate) to let air through (yeah, I'm kinda desperate).

The system keeps giving me black screens and sometimes just shuts off. I figured it would be a temperature problem but as you can see in the attached picture, they are just fine.

What can generate a black screen of death like this?

[Nickel020]

Re: Black screens - Anyone can figure why?

Could be the PSU, RAM, the board itself. You need to narrow down the potential error sources. It's best to start testing with tools like Prime95, Windows Memory Diagnostic/Memtest etc. When do the black screens occur? Just randomly, or during high loads like gaming or at other times?

[tcn]

Re: Black screens - Anyone can figure why?

Hi Nickel020,

I found my problem when I decided to remove the pipes off the NB/SB/Regs. It turned out that the pipes never touched the NB; the paste I put in exchange of the thermal pad was dry and I was able to see all the strokes I made while spreading the paste.

That explained my somewhat stable system for the past year or so. I removed the pipes and decided to put an independant heatsink on the SB, a high rise heatsink on the NB (CPU fans are sending a good airflow in that direction) and left the Regs heatsink without pipes.

I could not find a high rise heatsink that is not offset in regard to its base. I use the Thermalright HR-05/IFX-SLI. It is a ***** to put in a DS5-X48 but after a few cuts, I managed to put it there; not in the direction I wanted though. I was looking for the HR-05 not SLI but; I'm too late for that it seems. All I could find is one at QuietPC; I have to find out if shipping is lower that what they advertise......

Thanks for your interest!

tcn