I had noticed that my computer was running hotter than I thought that it should. So, since I had some work to do on it anyway, I popped the side off and did what I had to do. I have an “experienced” PC, which I frankensteined together from what I had available. Its reasonably good, with an AMD XP2500+ Barton processor, which will overclock to 2.2Ghz stable (which I don’t do,as I don’t like the temps). I took out a dead drive and unplugged the floppy drive which wasn’t working anyway.
What probably made the biggest difference, though, was when I cleaned the dust out of the CPU heatsink under the fan. The fins were clogged with dust. The temperature went down 6°C by doing that.
Don’t forget to vacuum out the dust bunnies once in a while. Your computer will thank you by not frying.
Umm. Reminds me to clean up my CPU. My master hdd’s temperature is pretty high, around 46C. Once in a while it’ll drop to 45C. CPU is quite ok, around 43C but just now I checked it’s 46C. I wouldn’t be too lazy to clean up the dust if only I don’t have to crawl under the table and knock my head against it a few times.
Yes, CPU heat is often related to dust clogging the vanes of the heat sink.
It’s best to clean it once in a while. But with laptops it’s far more tricky as taking apart the laptop is not as easy as manipulating a desktop system.
I’ve totally been there! My old pc, years ago, was shutting off randomly. Turns out the caked dust near the heatsink and cpu were blocking the fans. After a clean-out, I had no problems!
That’s why I have a can of liquid air handy. Comes in very handy for such cases. Also good for blowing the crap that build up inside the keyboard.
Good advice Corey!! And since I overclock my computer on occasion I can’t afford not to heed it.
My computer is seriously cool this week, unfortunatley its because I spilled a cold cup of tea all over it in my sleep! eek! good job its insured!