The case fans spin, but they aren't configured in a way that makes sense. The intake fan is a 140 mm fan, but is mainly optimized for static pressure and not airflow. The exhaust fan only spins at 1000 rpm and barely puts any air out. The PSU acts like a better exhaust than it, which brings me to this hypothesis of what's going on: Since the PSU is taking in all of the computer's heat, along with it's own, It's temperature goes way up, and then it's wattage capacity starts to drop from all of that heat, explaining the clicks and the shut-offs. Does that seem reasonable? So yeah, the airflow sucks and the hot air only circulates and gets hotter until the PSU vents it out. Not good... The fans are clean, they're just in the wrong places and the wrong types. Mostly that's the cases' fault.



The thing is, my board doesn't get all that hot, the only exception being the chipset. All hot parts have a fan over them, so I should be fine for the time being. I've been told that opening the case also makes dust more of an issue. I'll have to stay on top of things.

I've never quite been convinced that fans on both input and output sides should be necessary. Although of course a fan will enforce some amount of airflow where a hole won't, so if you have two holes and no fans, you might get airflow through only one of them, but with two fans in the holes you can be sure of flow.

Agreed, it's not right for the PSU to be doing all the exhaust work, if there's an additional case fan. Perhaps some sensor has died so the machine doesn't realise it's getting hot. Can you wire the case fan to be always full speed instead of throttled? (That is, the exhaust fan.)

Check out the new Dell computers. They have a large opening for cooling and they get dust covering the opening which is about the width of the case and about five inches the other way.

1000 rpm is full throttle! It can't go any faster. Or slower, for that matter. Unless something gets in the way.



Ugh, tell me about it. My friends will ask me why there computers won't work, and the first thing I notice is the poor thing is clogged with dust. After I clean it out and reinstall Windows, the system runs perfectly. That's how my laptop died. The exhaust fan was clogged with so much dust that NO air could get out. If only I knew that before... A nice Dell Latitude D600 could have been saved.

A laptop is different than a desktop because they have smaller parts and create more heat. I still have a Dell Desktop that runs Windows XP and the only thing I have changed is the hard drive. I like Dell because they give me support, they give me disks, drivers, etc., and I can find replacement parts.

I've opened our Dell and I have vacuumed it but I stay clear of the circuit boards.

I bought a Power Spec from Microcenter and there was a free internet CD there. I installed the free internet and it tried to install itself twice and for years it was a nightmare computer. I got rid of the free internet because I realized the providers were identity thieves and only wanted me to look at ads. The installation messed the computer up.

I kept getting registry errors and the registry would reset itself which means after I spent hours installing the printer drivers, the printer was no longer there. I sent my computer to two shops and they only took my money and one of the shops un-deleted all of my files because they were phishing.

I called Microsoft and they helped me fix the registry a little bit. I reset the computer to the factory settings many times and I kept having registry errors.

It wasn't until I took the coin cell battery out to reset the settings that the computer started to behave and I reset the computer to the factory settings.
I spent at least two years in that nightmare trying to figure it out.

I bought a Power Spec from Microcenter and there was a free internet CD there. I installed the free internet and it tried to install itself twice and for years it was a nightmare computer. I got rid of the free internet because I realized the providers were identity thieves and only wanted me to look at ads. The installation messed the computer up.

I kept getting registry errors and the registry would reset itself which means after I spent hours installing the printer drivers, the printer was no longer there. I sent my computer to two shops and they only took my money and one of the shops un-deleted all of my files because they were phishing.

I called Microsoft and they helped me fix the registry a little bit. I reset the computer to the factory settings many times and I kept having registry errors.

It wasn't until I took the coin cell battery out to reset the settings that the computer started to behave and I reset the computer to the factory settings.
I spent at least two years in that nightmare trying to figure it out.[/quote]

Wow. That must have been a pain. At a quick glance they look like nice computers. I actually had a similar issue with my build. I tried to re-install windows because a virus infection wrecked the thing, and Windows wouldn't install until I reset the BIOS (which is the same as removing the coin battery, but my motherboard works a little differently). After that I had no issues. Later I find out that the copy I bought was OEM, so I couldn't upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit. Now I'm waiting for my parents to get Bit Defender so I can upgrade through Windows 10. This has all taught me a lesson: only get software from vendors you trust.

It was a nice computer but I recycled it because I needed the room and it was an old computer.. Time is worth money so computers that are Dual or Quad Core work faster than older computers.

Imagine installing free internet software from identity thieves... Fortunately I have more powerful spam tools than those which were available to me back then and it took a while to shake them.

The reality is we cannot always tell who is on the other end of the phone even if they say they are legitimate so my advice to everyone is not to allow yourself to be solicited.
There is a caller I.D. issue with a Church calling itself by the same name as our church and our church says it is another organization. Think of the implications of this.
I'm not going to imply their motive because I don't know but it is scary none the less. You think you trust the people on the other end but they are causing confusion by calling themselves by the same name.

Here is a book if you want to read a crime story:

The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security Paperback – October 17, 2003

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Deception-Con ... in+mitnick

Guess what got reported in the news today?

"Shortly after the launch, reports started trickling in that the driver was locking the fan speed at 20% and killing GPUs. AMD quickly acknowledged the issue and announced over the weekend that it would be releasing a hotfix to correct the problem. "

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/crimso ... 30666.html

Could this be the fix you were looking for? It mentions Radeon!

I don't think so, at least I hope not. The fan doesn't seem to kick up at all, except when I'm playing Super Smash Bros Melee on my emulator, then the fan will kick up from 25% to 35%. Other than that, it stays at 25%. But I'll touch the heatsink (the case is always wide open, so why not?), and it'll be cool to the touch. I can manually set the speed to 100% using MSI afterburner, but then I might go insane from the noise.

As I was typing this, I set the fan to max to relive the memories of having to do that to get dust out of the bearings. The fan started to make a light scratching noise, which I don't like. I put the fan back to auto. I'll have to take a look at that later.

Speaking of dust, you guys won't believe what I discovered on my GPU. So I noticed that the temps were above normal, and I decided it was time for the GPUs first cleaning. It's a used card I got for free, so you would assume the previous owner took care of it, right? Not this time. When I blew off a coating of dust, I noticed it had a weird smell to it. So I took my pipe cleaner (those fuzzy wire things children use for art and stuff. Not sure what the real name for it is, that's just what I call it. They make a good duster, though) and wiped some of the heavier dust off. I didn't have to get near to catch a scent this time. I smell it some more, and then I realized what I was dealing with. The previous owner was a smoker, and the "dust" on my card was cigarette ash !!! So I spent a good hour disassembling the entire unit cleaning off every speck of the toxin, and now my GPU doesn't smell anymore. And it runs cooler. To all of you guys out there who scored a free PC part: ALWAYS clean it first. You don't know where it's been.

Now my PC is starting to do something new: It will randomly lock up and won't respond to anything, forcing me to force shut down. Christmas is coming, so I'll hopefully get a bunch of new shiny parts to make this thing run better, but I'm not sure as to what's causing this.

The chipset is still overheating. I had to screw in another CPU cooling fan over the chipset heatsink. But that still doesn't help. And it's three years too late to RMA the motherboard.

Well, after a long time of investigation, I have determined that the issue is my PSU. That, and the entire system was covered in dust. And you won't believe how lucky I was. I decided to do a full cleaning with my CPU heatsink, but when I undid the retention bracket, the heatsink wouldn't come off. I assumed that it was just stuck, so I wiggled it a little, and then tugged at it. It finally came off, but not the way I wanted it to. The CPU got ripped out of it's socket and was stuck on the bottom of the heatsink. After using a hammer and a screw driver as a makeshift chisel, I finally got the little guy off. The thermal paste dried up and glued my poor CPU to the heatsink. But no bent pins, so that was lucky. I put the thing together, and my PC still runs the way it normally does. But now I don't have good thermal paste in the thing, so now my temps are 10 C hotter. Looks like I'm going to have to get new thermal paste along with a power supply. But I am sooooooo lucky I didn't break anything.

A close shave!

I've a feeling that some of these thermal pastes go gooey when hot, so if you'd run it for a bit, then powered off and then tried to lift the heatsink you might have had more luck.

But the thermal paste is always the weak link in the chain - it's not very conductive. So it's important to get it as flat and thin as you can. It should only be thick enough to cover the microscopic deviations from flatness - it's not like tiling a wall!

Well, I have a new tube of paste on it's way, along with that much needed PSU. I should probably be repasting my CPU regularly to prevent another accident. How often should that be?

I've never heard of repasting - only when a heatsink is replaced. But maybe there is such an idea.

I'm not convinced being dried up is a problem at all. Clearly the paste was doing something, since your CPU is running 10 C hotter now that you have no paste at all.

What leads you to believe a new power supply is required? Except for mentioning dust, you didn't explain.