A Land Far Away

I think I've been having problems with my computer fans, they seem to not be working so well. I think my comp has been over-heating as of late.

Can anyone please help me with tips to make sure they are running well?
Please take pity on this poor njub.

Use this handy checklist:

Are they spinning? (y/n)
Are they full of dust? (y/n)

If the answer to number one is N, buy new fan. If the answer to number two is N, clean fan.

Simple, yet effective. Thanks!

I have several cans of canned air laying about. Blow the dust out of the PC every now and then. Also handy for...well, anything really. keyboards, monitor, small children, etc..

Joor a huffer, aren't you, fluffer?

I think we're all fans of computers here!!

oh...

I see.

I love computers so much I'm over-heating.

Heat problems are probably the CPU or GPU fan. The case can get too hot too, but it's hard to do. Take your CPU fan off and clean it and the heatsink out real good, and the GPU too.

Take the GPU out? And where is this sink of heat?

You might also have a problem with the thermal paste that is between your CPU and your fan's heatsink. The thermal paste conducts heat from your CPU to the heatsink and then the fan dissipates it from the heatsink.

I had the problem before. The fan worked nicely but I had some overheating just because the thermal paste was so old it didn't work well anymore.

So basically you have to buy some thermal paste, remove the fan and heatsink, put a little bit of thermal paste and spread it as you would spread butter on a toast (if you were overweight - ie thinly). Then you put back your fan/heatsink and play again for a while and see if it still overheats...

Edit: the heatsink is the metallic thing that is between your CPU/GPU and its fan. It usually has some very thin sheets of metal either parallel to each other or sometimes like an accordion.
If it doesn't help you, just post your CPU/GPU details and we'll find some pictures of it.

What also could be of help is downloading some diagnostic tools. I normally use Everest, which is developed by a company called Lavalys. This programs basically gives you a run down of everything that is in your PC, and I mean everything. 75% of what it tells you is stuff you didn't even know you had.
The wonderful side effect of this program is that it will also give you temperatures of various hardware and an added overall system temperature. Every normal mainboard/CPU/GPU has a built in thermometer so you should be good. If you're really lucky it can also tell you at what RPM your fans are running.

Good luck!

Dorn wrote:I think we're all fans of computers here!!

oh...

I see.

I see what you did there.