The Joys and Frustrations of PC Building: A Personal Experience

As a tech enthusiast, I have always been fascinated by the process of building and customizing my own computer. For me, it's not just about throwing together some components and hoping for the best – it's an art form, a fun and creative process that allows me to express myself and show off my skills. And when things go right, it can be incredibly rewarding. But when they don't... well, let's just say I've learned the hard way that PC building can also be a frustrating and painful experience.

One of the most recent examples of this is my latest attempt at upgrading to a new liquid cooling system for my main workstation. I had been running an Intel Core i9-7980XE 18 core, 36 thread CPU in my X299 build, and while it's been great so far, the thing runs HOT. I'm talking 80+ degrees Celsius hot, people. And that's just at idle. Under load, it's even worse. So, I decided to take the plunge and install a new liquid cooling system, specifically an EVGA CLC 280.

The plan was simple: order the cooler, install it, and voila! My build would be good as new. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, let me tell you – it wasn't that simple at all. The first problem I encountered was when I tried to place the cooler in the front of my case. Turns out, it doesn't actually fit there, period. I had to remove the optical drive and push the BluRay drive out of the way just to get it to sit properly.

But even with that challenge overcome, things only got worse from there. When I plugged in the cooler's fans, I realized that they were incredibly loud – like, ear-shattering loud. And the noise wasn't just coming from the fans themselves, but also from the pump and the reservoir, which seemed to be working overtime to push coolant through the system. It was like a never-ending drumbeat of doom, shaking my very foundations.

And then, of course, there was the issue with the installation itself. I had followed all the instructions to the letter, but somehow, I managed to bend one of the pins on the front panel header connector on my motherboard. Turns out, it's now only working one port – perfect. I can just imagine my boss's face when he finds out that my "new and improved" workstation is actually broken.

As I sat there, staring at my mangled mess of a computer, I couldn't help but feel a sense of frustration and disappointment. This was supposed to be a fun project, something I could share with my audience and show off my skills. Instead, it had turned into a disaster movie, with me as the hapless hero trying to survive against all odds.

But despite all the setbacks, I couldn't help but laugh at myself. I mean, who else gets so worked up over a liquid cooling system? And in the end, that's what PC building is all about – learning from your mistakes and moving on. So, if you liked this video, you know what to do...

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enPC Building can be portrayed as this gloriousart; a fun process of assembling your chosenparts and crafting a build that you love andgetting great satisfaction out of it.And sometimes it can be.But sometimes, it honestly just sucks.This video has no real point, if I’m honest- just a peek into a day of botched computermaintenance and what can go wrong in an otherwisesimple project - and a good way to vent andget some ROI on all the footage I capturedfor no reason now.First, let’s pay some bills.Plex is the media streaming app that beautifullyorganizes your media collections and letsyou securely access them on all your screens.Now with live TV viewing and DVR.Click the link in the video description tolearn more.So I managed to waste an entire work day doingwhat should have been a fairly simple CPUcooler swap in my main workstation.I’ve been running a new build for about9 months now that I’ve not really talkedabout on-camera much - it’s an X299 buildrunning the Intel Core i9-7980XE 18 core,36 thread CPU - graciously provided by Intel.It’s great.But, as many of you might know by now - thisthing runs HOT.I currently have it sitting around 3.6 to3.8GHz on an all-core overclock to balanceout the weird Turbo Boost 3.0 behavior, butthat means that some cores can hit 85C underfull tilt load.I could push it up to like 4.7GHz or so, butthen it’d be in the 90s and possibly overheatand etc.For the YouTubers who aren’t using thisin their main rig or have the funds to easilyreplace it if they screw it up, their solutionhas been to delid the CPU, or take off theintegrated heat spreader and remove the badthermal compound underneath on the CPU dieitself and then either put on better thermalcompound or use liquid metal - and that hasproven to be very effective at lowering processortemps.But I’m not one of those people.This is my primary workstation and it wouldbe very problematic to be without it for anysignificant amount of time, and I can’teasily buy a new $2000 CPU.So I started looking into coolers.I’m currently using an unbranded 240mm AIOliquid cooler from CyberPower that came onthe CPU when I got it from Intel.It has 4 120mm Corsair HD RGB fans in push-pullconfiguration.With that, the rig idles around 39 to 43Cand under 100% full-tilt loads, it holds between75C and 85C max.It’s hot, but not problematically so.But I thought I could improve it.I did my research, looked into cooler performanceon the 7980XE, looked at the documentationfor my case - the Phanteks Enthoo Pro M, thefirst time I’ve built in a mid-tower sizedcase - and it says it can support a 280mmradiator without needing to remove the opticaldrive.I saw nothing about where it needed to go,eyeballing made me thing i could squeeze itback on the front of the case like my currentradiator and I was good to go.Looked into GamersNexus top coolers for 2017and the EVGA CLC 280 was it.I ordered it and got to work the next morning.Boy was that a mistake….It took me a long time to un-do the push-pullfans and Corsair’s horrendous RGB scheme.2 wires for every fan, all tightly wrappedand tied up in my case.This is why I don’t waste time on cablemanagement most of the time despite complaintsfor viewers.It is never worth it.I am always changing things and swapping thingsout and the more tidy you make cables, themore hellish life becomes when it’s timeto undo them.I actually wound up cutting my finger opentrying to pull out the RGB plugs from theCorsair RGB controller.I swore I’d never use that again, but spoileralert; I do.So a good hour or two of dismantling my previouscooler and planning how I’m going to tacklethe cable management, I cleaned off the thermalcompound from the CPU and cooler, gettingalcohol in my brand new cut while I was atit, and time to install my brand new EVGACLC 280.Should be great, right?The fans are a little ugly, but it has a RGBbadge on the cooler to make up for the lesslight from the front.Let’s do this.Turns out it’s helpful if you at least lookat the product near your build before spendinghours preparing to install it.The CLC 280 does not fit in the front of mycase AT ALL without removing the optical drive.While doing specific measurements would havetold me this prior to ordering, since thecase manual specified when the optical driveneeded to be removed, I assumed it would specifyif something could only fit in the top.I was pissed, but I proceeded to pull outthe top cooler tray, remove the 140mm CorsairRGB fan from there and install the cooler.Turns out that this EVGA cooler is just beefyfor its size, as it doesn’t actually fitthere, either.I had to push the BluRay drive out quite abit in order to fit this thing, but I wascommitted at this point.It’s a workstation, it doesn’t need tobe pretty, right?I got everything wrapped up, shot some moreb-roll of this monster of a cooler with bothfans plugged into the pump itself and theUSB 2.0 plug that I didn’t realize my motherboarddidn’t have a header for ran to the outsideof my case and took it upstairs.Time to see the amazing results, right?Yeah, no.It ran a little hotter at idle and actuallystarted kicking up to 5 or so degrees hotteron average per core under load, AND it wasincredibly loud while cooling.All this work to make my build uglier andlouder?What the hell?Part of that problem is the positioning ofmy PC.I have it on a wood stand on the ground belowmy desk.This is important to keep the sound blockedout as much as possible away from my microphone.This also means that there’s a little bubbleof hot air under the desk.When the cooler was in the front, it had noproblem, you can feel the front fans pullingin cold air low to the ground and the exhaustshooting hot air out the other side and up.But when the cooler is at the top of the caseright next to the exhaust fan, it’s probablyjust pulling in hotter air, giving it a muchmore difficult time.So by this point I’d given up on filminganything.Swapped the cooler back, used up the restof my Kryonaut thermal compound - they reallydon’t give you much - and wound up leavingthings how they originally were and had wastedliterally an entire work day.I think at this point - other than a futurevideo showing the motherboard I’ve switchedto - I don’t want to have to build on thisrig anymore.With my workstations I’m a “just buildit to work” kind of guy.This was the first time I built somethingflashy for YouTube, used a smaller case whenthis all would’ve been easier in a DefineR6 or something like I normally use, and I’vemostly regretted it.Oh yeah, and I also learned that somehow whenI first plugged in the USB 3.0 front panelconnector to my brand new expensive motherboard,I bent one of the pins in the header to helland back and broke it off trying to fix itduring this.Only one of the front panel ports works now.Perfect.Now, I can buy a PCIe card with a header,but still frustrating.So while PC building can be fun and an artif you’re doing it as a hobby, and I willstill enjoy tinkering with my side rigs - whenthe primary machine you do your day to daywork with is on the line, things aren’talways sunshine and rainbows.I’m sure the EVGA CLC 280 is fine for mostpeople, and I only returned it because I wasso mad about the whole experience, but justthought I’d share a day in the life of abotched PC maintenance experiment.If you liked the video, you know what to do.I’m EposVox, here to make tech… more difficultand confusing this time?I’ll see you next time.\n"