in need of a cleaning

[[JiF]phantomx]

Been noticing my PC has been crashing more and more lately. Actually crashing is wrong term....just shutting off. Noticed this the most when playing graphic intensive games (usually did this on BFBC2). Opened up my box and all the heat sinks and fans where covered in dust. Did a good cleaning (even had to reapply thermal paste to CPU) and not only has it not crashed on me yet but the it is so much quieter (fans are almost never turning on anymore)...

d'oh....guess I will add computer cleaning to spring cleaning chores from now on....

[[JiF]Uncle Stinky]

I've been having the same problem lately with the 100 degree heat-wave; even with A/C, my man-cave gaming room gets hot. What I did was move my computer unit out from the enclosed hutch area to a more open location under the table. So far, it's worked, as it lets the heat dissipate more easily. I also cleaned the inside.

For a while there, every graphic intensive game I played (BC2, WoW, Bordlerlands, LFD2) crashed after about 30 minutes -- the sound began to stutter and then the computer locked up.

What is this about thermal paste? Is that something easy to do?

[[JiF]corn]

Thermal paste is a very high heat conductive paste that is used between two objects (usually a heatsink and a CPU/GPU) to get better heat conduction. It fills in all those microscopic imperfections on the heatsink and CPU/GPU that can trap air in them and cause a loss in the heatsink's performance. Air is a very poor conductor of heat. Thermal Interface Materials (TIM) can be up to a 100 times greater conductor of heat than air.
However, thermal paste is not near as good of a conductor as copper. Thus, too much thermal paste will hinder a heatsink's ability to cool properly


This quote above was taken from a tech site article.
http://www.techpowerup.com/printarticle.php?id=134" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[[JiF]lini]

I do that about once a year on my old notebook - unfortunately cpu fan & cooler only, 'cause for being able to reach the gpu fan & cooler one would have to almost completely disassemble that thing. Last cleaning time only was a couple of weeks ago and took me a bit longer than usual, as I had to resolder the fan cable to the fan. It had almost come off already, 'cause it's very short and its litz wires are very thin, so it's almost impossible to get the fan out of its compartment for cleaning without straining the wires at the solder joints (and one also can't just disconnect it for that purpose, 'cause reaching the other end of the cable would also require much further disassembly... *sigh*).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini