Heating problem?

schumi

schumi

Honorary Master
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
25,094
Reaction score
2,032
Location
Durban
I need advice for my torrent box, its +-6 year old can’t remember exactly, I would google my problem but I don’t exactly know what it is, after running for a few minutes the fan speed increases from around 1000 to 3000, when that happens watching a video of the hard drive stutters, when switching the computer off even the Xp tone stutters, even killing all applications and waiting does not help this used to happen from day 1 of the computers life if I played computer games, temperatures are on the high side hard drive idles at 48/49°C, used to be 46°C a week ago, I know something has to be done about the heat, since the fan is dusty, but dust would slow down fan speed and also happens when my temps are 33°C when i start the computer , during increase fan speed and video buffering the time on the computer is slower. Sometimes putting it in standby mode stops it, but just browsing the net and torrenting starts the problem again. Interestingly the increased fan speed makes no difference on the temperature Hddscan.com shows a pass, speed fan says hard drive is 95% fit.
Computer specs
Windows Xp
Ram 512 MB DDR-SDRAM
Intel Pentium 4
18 gigs free on hard drive if it matters
Any help appreciated
 
Clean out all dust and apply new thermal paste to cpu/heatsink.
 
I would recommend that you stick in a toothbrush or something to prevent the fans from spinning when you're cleaning it with a vacuum cleaner. If you don't do this, then you might damage the fan's bearings or even your motherboard due to reverse current/voltage.

You can run HWMonitor to monitor the fan speeds, as well as the system temperatures. Idle temperature is fine, but usually also irrelevant.
I would do as ponder said. It really makes a MASSIVE difference in CPU temperature when you clean off the old thermal paste and apply new paste!
I've seen people decrease their CPU temperatures from like 90'C to 50'C by simply applying new thermal paste...
 
Sounds like your CPU might not be properly secured to the CPU, that's why you don't see a temp drop when the fan speed increases. The reason your CPU didn't burn yet, is probably because of the air flow produced by the fan. I also suggest you do what ponder said.

Check the temperatures in the BIOS (hit Del when the PC boots up).
 
MiyagiDono said:
Sounds like your CPU might not be properly secured to the CPU, that's why you don't see a temp drop when the fan speed increases. The reason your CPU didn't burn yet, is probably because of the air flow produced by the fan. I also suggest you do what ponder said.

Check the temperatures in the BIOS (hit Del when the PC boots up).
Click to expand...
WOW, you really failed there with your post :)

He meant that you should ensure that the CPU heatsink is properly tightened onto the CPU.

MiyagiDono: if you don't properly connect your heatsink, then airflow will have absolutely no effect whatsoever! Without a heatsink the CPU will hit 100'C+ within the first few seconds.
 
lol. Yeah. About the air flow, you got a point. The fan blows air through the heatsink, not across the CPU. Although I doubt whether air can even cool a CPU. :) So double fail there with my post.
 
So I cleaned the fan of with the Q tips, only improver by about 2°C . guess I’m going to have to thermal paste to cpu/heatsink looks daunting so going to do more research on it, thanks for your help.
 
schumi said:
So I cleaned the fan of with the Q tips, only improver by about 2°C . guess I’m going to have to thermal paste to cpu/heatsink looks daunting so going to do more research on it, thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

I thought only yanks called the q tips, cotton bud over here. It's really not hard to replace the thermal paste.
 
Here's how you replace thermal paste.

First discharge your hands (remove static electricity) on your PC's metal case before touching your heatsink and/or CPU.

If you have the stock Intel CPU fan, then take a flat screw driver, turn the 4 knobs at each corner of the fan until it pops up, unplug the fan connector, and either wiggle the fan/heatsink until it comes off the CPU or take your screw driver and "move the hooks" holding the fan/heatsink down.

Then take some toilet paper, discharge it on the computer case, then wipe your CPU clean. Do the same for the heatsink. If the stuff is super hard/dry, then take a bank card to scrape it off.

When everything is clean and free from thermal paste, apply a drop of thermal paste to the CPU about the size of a 1/3 of a grain of rice, then take the bank card and spread the paste until it covers most of the CPU. Do the same for the heatsink, except, you only need to spread the paste over the center-circle of the heatsink.

Then clip the heatsink back over the CPU, and tighten each diagonally-opposite corner of the heatsink. By diagonally opposite I mean, you tighten the "screws" in each corner in this order: 1 -> 3 -> 2 -> 4. The tricky part is tightening the screws so that it's secure. The arrows on the screws are pointing in the direction to loosten the screws, not tighten it, so you turn the screws so that it's loose, then you press down hard onto the screw with your screw driver, and twist the screw clockwise/to the right. The corner where you tightened the screw should be secure and shouldn't come loose.

Once you've tightened each corner, you plug the CPU fan connector back into it's socket, then you're good to go.

Now put on your PC, and hit Del to enter the BIOS. Then monitor the CPU temperature for a few mins to make sure that it's stable.

Edit: By the way, while the fan/heatsink is off the CPU, blow air through the heatsink to remove the dust.
 
Last edited:
MiyagiDono said:
Here's how you replace thermal paste.

First discharge your hands (remove static electricity) on your PC's metal case before touching your heatsink and/or CPU.

If you have the stock Intel CPU fan, then take a flat screw driver, turn the 4 knobs at each corner of the fan until it pops up, unplug the fan connector, and either wiggle the fan/heatsink until it comes off the CPU or take your screw driver and "move the hooks" holding the fan/heatsink down.

Then take some toilet paper, discharge it on the computer case, then wipe your CPU clean. Do the same for the heatsink. If the stuff is super hard/dry, then take a bank card to scrape it off.

When everything is clean and free from thermal paste, apply a drop of thermal paste to the CPU about the size of a 1/3 of a grain of rice, then take the bank card and spread the paste until it covers most of the CPU. Do the same for the heatsink, except, you only need to spread the paste over the center-circle of the heatsink.

Then clip the heatsink back over the CPU, and tighten each diagonally-opposite corner of the heatsink. By diagonally opposite I mean, you tighten the "screws" in each corner in this order: 1 -> 3 -> 2 -> 4. The tricky part is tightening the screws so that it's secure. The arrows on the screws are pointing in the direction to loosten the screws, not tighten it, so you turn the screws so that it's loose, then you press down hard onto the screw with your screw driver, and twist the screw clockwise/to the right. The corner where you tightened the screw should be secure and shouldn't come loose.

Once you've tightened each corner, you plug the CPU fan connector back into it's socket, then you're good to go.

Now put on your PC, and hit Del to enter the BIOS. Then monitor the CPU temperature for a few mins to make sure that it's stable.

Edit: By the way, while the fan/heatsink is off the CPU, blow air through the heatsink to remove the dust.
Click to expand...

Really silly question here, I only see one fan behind the Power supply is it the same fan we referring to.
 
Fan behind the powersupply? Er, yes, I think that's the one. The fan should be facing you (i.e. facing away from the motherboard). It should be located adjacent to the RAM modules, and adjacent to the northbridge heatsink (which is the other larger chunk of metal attached to the motherboard). I'm a little confused - Have you ever never seen a CPU and CPU fan before?
 
If you have never fiddled inside a PC before then it might be best if you ask a friend, that has, this time. Then you watch & learn.
 
It's been two days since the Op's last post, did he get electrocuted?
 
Sorry forgot to update, The fan is inside the power supply . Seems I need more fans
 
Hmm, sounds to me like you need a bigger power supply, because if you run like a 450W PSU at like 350W, then it will get hotter than running a 600W PSU at 350W.
 
But, for a PSU, price scales exponentially with respect to power. I love my good 'ol Gigabyte 460W PSU. Cheap and satisfactory.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X