Heya guys! I posted not too long ago with building a gaming rig at around $1,500 budget http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] 500-budget.

My budget ended up being a bit short of that so I ended up getting a single 8800GTS in a Gigabyte P35-DS3R with my Antec 900. Because of the great things I've heard of the XIGMATEK HDT-S1283, I decided I'd go with that to keep my E8400 cool.

Now I've gotten the machine up and running and everything seems to work fine with the exception of my computer sometimes refusing to boot up. It would attempt to boot, fans would spin and then it would shut down. If I let it rest a bit and turn it on, it works out. I'm not too sure if I've installed the heat sink properly and if that can be the cause. I've been told that the pipes are supposed to run over the E8400 a certain way and that the fan is supposed to push as opposed to pull and all sorts of things. The instructions weren't very clear either. I've taken some pictures for anyone who could shed some light on this issue.

The quality is the best I can get out of my cell phone.. can't seem to find my battery charger for my camera. The Antec 900 has all the fans stock as they came. Not sure if I should flip the rear fan the other way. Here are my specs once again and here are the pics. Also, please don't mind the cable management. I'm just making sure everything works before I attempt to hide and organize cables.

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
Antec 900
Xigmatek HDT-S1283
E8400

edited the first pic to show airflow.

turn the heatsink fan 180 degrees

Turn it 180° so that the fan would be blowing towards my hard drives?

Flipped it quick in photoshop with the arrows showing airflow just so I can make sure I understand you correctly.

It should be blowing to the back when You flip it.

Excuse my ignorance in this but so I understand you correctly, the fan should be facing the fins so that the air is going THROUGH the heat sink towards the back? If that's the case, are you familiar with the heat sink and how I would go about getting the rubber pieces out of the fan? Seems impossible with the amount of effort it took me getting them in. In all the pictures and videos I've seen on major sites reviewing the heat sink, most have had the fan in the same position as I had mine, logo pointing outwards and the fan blades in the same positioning. Now I'm very confused.

in the 3rd picture from the top I can see that fan is correctly mounted on the heatsink and it should be blowing in to the heatsink if the connector is connected correctly. All You need to do is flip the heatsink fan so that fan is to the front of heatsink and blowing to the back pushing air through the heatsink. And the rear case fan will be extracting heated air from heatsink out of the case.

Perfect. I was confused cause I had mistaken the fan for blowing in the opposite direction. Thanks a lot ainarssems. I really appreciate it especially this early in the morning! Thanks.

Do you mind posting a better picture, focused on the cabling?

Try to make sure all your fans, where possible, are on seperate molex plugs. Avoid adding multiple fans to one plug or multiple plugs into a HDD etc.

All the fans are plugged into my PSU and most have their dedicated cable thanks to not having a modular PSU. Rotated the heat sink 180 so now it's blowing air the right way. Might not be the place to post it but I'll try my luck here.

I overclocked my e8400 to 4ghz at 1.28v. I've been monitoring the temps when stress testing it using Orthos and I've had the temperatures peak at 74c but normally hover around 68-70c on 100% load. Is this a bit too high on this type of cooler or am I simply expecting too much of it?

Using Easytune it lists my temperatures at roughly 11c less than with Core Temp meaning I would have 57-69c on 100% load. Don't know which would be more accurate.

Hope you got your system cooler with the flip... I was wondering if the northbridge heatsink on your DS3R board gave you any problems with the Xigmatek cooler.

It seems to have fit from the picture but just wondering before I buy this same set up...

use realtemp.
i have the same cooler on my e8400 and it averages 34-36c going up to 48c under load. i also have mine oc'd to 4hgz as well.

clean up your cabling and the temps should lower some more.