So I noticed my box was running a little warm...

[Smith6612]

So last night I took it out to my garage to blow the dust out of everything! The system itself was physically clean, with only a thin layer of dust on the hardware. My PC is on 24/7. Here are the average temps of my box before I blew it out. System was overclocked and fully loaded!

CPU Core 0: 52 Celcius
CPU Core 1: 54 Celcius
CPU Core 2: 49 Celcius
CPU Core 3: 53 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (1): 63 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (2): 65 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (3): 61 Celcius
HDD 1: 34 Celcius
HDD 2: 34 Celcius
HDD 3: 35 Celcius
HDD 4: 35 Celcius
Ambient case temperature: 32 Celcius

Now, at the garage I opened up the case, fired up an air compressor with an air gun tool, and then blew out the dust from the PC. I also blew out the dust from my heat sinks and the dust out of the video cards. Note that this was very little dust. Taking my PC back inside and firing it up and then stressing it for over an hour with 100% load on the GPU and CPU from Folding@Home, I get the following temps with the same settings on the system.

CPU Core 0: 39 Celcius
CPU Core 1: 40 Celius
CPU Core 2: 41 Celcius
CPU Core 3: 40 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (1): 45 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (2): 46 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (3): 44 Celcius
HDD 1: 30 Celcius
HDD 2: 30 Celcius
HDD 3: 28 Celcius
HDD 4: 29 Celcius
Ambient Case Temperature: 26 Celcius


Notice how much of a drop in temperature that was? This was only from a couple months of the box running. Also note that I do filter the air in my home so that rules out much of the issues. Take note that the fans on my box are automatically controlled unless I override them. Before I blew the box out, the video card fans as well as the system fans would start to turn their speed up as I increased the load and temperatures rose. Now that I blew the box out, the fans barely turn up their speed and the temps remain much lower. (each fan runs at 30% of it's maximum speed and starts to spin faster after the temperature starts to get beyond a threshold, and will keep turning up the speed until the temps start to fall or the fan maxes out).

So, my message to you guys is this: If you have the tools, clean out your PC once a year! If it's a high end box, clean it up every couple months. This is what I've been doing for years and it does keep my hardware alive

 

[ichwar]

So last night I took it out to my garage to blow the dust out of everything! The system itself was physically clean, with only a thin layer of dust on the hardware. My PC is on 24/7. Here are the average temps of my box before I blew it out. System was overclocked and fully loaded!

CPU Core 0: 52 Celcius
CPU Core 1: 54 Celcius
CPU Core 2: 49 Celcius
CPU Core 3: 53 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (1): 63 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (2): 65 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (3): 61 Celcius
HDD 1: 34 Celcius
HDD 2: 34 Celcius
HDD 3: 35 Celcius
HDD 4: 35 Celcius
Ambient case temperature: 32 Celcius

Now, at the garage I opened up the case, fired up an air compressor with an air gun tool, and then blew out the dust from the PC. I also blew out the dust from my heat sinks and the dust out of the video cards. Note that this was very little dust. Taking my PC back inside and firing it up and then stressing it for over an hour with 100% load on the GPU and CPU from Folding@Home, I get the following temps with the same settings on the system.

CPU Core 0: 39 Celcius
CPU Core 1: 40 Celius
CPU Core 2: 41 Celcius
CPU Core 3: 40 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (1): 45 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (2): 46 Celcius
GeForce GTX280 (3): 44 Celcius
HDD 1: 30 Celcius
HDD 2: 30 Celcius
HDD 3: 28 Celcius
HDD 4: 29 Celcius
Ambient Case Temperature: 26 Celcius


Notice how much of a drop in temperature that was? This was only from a couple months of the box running. Also note that I do filter the air in my home so that rules out much of the issues. Take note that the fans on my box are automatically controlled unless I override them. Before I blew the box out, the video card fans as well as the system fans would start to turn their speed up as I increased the load and temperatures rose. Now that I blew the box out, the fans barely turn up their speed and the temps remain much lower. (each fan runs at 30% of it's maximum speed and starts to spin faster after the temperature starts to get beyond a threshold, and will keep turning up the speed until the temps start to fall or the fan maxes out).

So, my message to you guys is this: If you have the tools, clean out your PC once a year! If it's a high end box, clean it up every couple months. This is what I've been doing for years and it does keep my hardware alive

I try and clean my box out at least once a month as I've been experiencing much the same thing: it runs incredibly quieter right after I vacuum the whole thing out.:thefinger

 

[zen-r]

That's because you sucked all the circuit boards out of it as well. Didn't you notice how nice & black your monitor screen was right afterwards?!!

Seriously though, this removing of dust is a good idea but you must be very careful to not cause harm whilst doing it. There are a number of risks ;

Knocking & breaking off small components, leads etc with the nozzle.
Creating high static voltages by the air flow, damaging sensitive electronic parts.
Causing small adjustable devices like trimmers (variable resistors or capacitors) to become re-aligned to a new value, resulting in the circuit performing differently or not at all.
And so on...

So take care!

 

[Smith6612]

I am careful with my hardware. Why wouldn't I be? :biggrin:

Might I mention, a few months ago just for kicks to benchmark my cooling capacity, I turned up every fan on my PC to 100% speed. Case fans, PSU fan, and GPU fans. I recall that as soon as I fired them all up I could see some dust blowing out of the back of the computer :biggrin: and that the computer sounded like a jet engine.

 

[adamparkzer]

I have a laptop that's about two years old, and it runs on average at about 60 degrees Celsius. It can shoot up to 90 degrees Celsius if I'm gaming, watching videos, listening to music, and multitasking more. I tried cleaning out my laptop by sucking out some air through the fan hole, but it didn't really do much, and I didn't see a drastic reduction in running temperature.

 

[ichwar]

you'll need to open it up to effectively clean it out.

 

[zen-r]

....I recall that as soon as I fired them all up I could see some dust blowing out of the back of the computer :biggrin: and that the computer sounded like a jet engine.

Now we know the source of the last tornado in your area!

... It can shoot up to 90 degrees Celsius if I'm gaming, watching videos, listening to music, and multitasking more. I tried cleaning out my laptop .....

Congrats. Throw away your electric kettle. You have just invented the laptop water boiler. A cup of coffee now need never be more than an arm's length away.

 

[Smith6612]

Now we know the source of the last tornado in your area!



Congrats. Throw away your electric kettle. You have just invented the laptop water boiler. A cup of coffee now need never be more than an arm's length away.

Tornado? What tornado (in all seriousness my area doesn't get tornadoes. The only things we get close to that are very weak funnel clouds, water spouts, and level 1 tornadoes that die after 5 seconds. Even so these only happen maybe once every 15-20 years or so).

But the laptop running at 90 celcius reminds me of the CPU Stove video on YouTube. And yes, it's not unusual to see a laptop running that warm. There are ways to help cool it though. One is to use SpeedFan to crank up the fan speed on it, and the second way is to give it more air flow on the bottom of the laptop. The third way is to, of course if you want to sacrifice some performance, have the laptop underclock itself by running it off the battery/booting it up off the battery.

 

[adamparkzer]

One is to use SpeedFan to crank up the fan speed on it

How do I do this? When I go to the Fan tab in the SpeedFan options, there isn't anything listed. Does the fan speed control exist in some other section of the interface?

 

[Smith6612]

If the fan's not listed then it's probably not a controllable fan. I've seen a lot of OEM based PCs lately where they don't allow you to touch the fans as that's entirely controlled by the fan and motherboard itself. Older PCs? Sure, no problem, just as long as it was a high end one/one with a decent motherboard in it.

 

[adamparkzer]

Congrats. Throw away your electric kettle. You have just invented the laptop water boiler. A cup of coffee now need never be more than an arm's length away.

My laptop really isn't a problem unless I'm playing games and listening to music at the same time, and either way, I'm not that much of a gamer. It's running at 46 degrees Celsius right now, but the only thing I have running is Firefox with two tabs and AOL Instant Messenger.

I have a Toshiba Portégé M400, and there was an issue with the fan being too loud. From what I can literally hear from my laptop, I think the fan on my laptop might already be running at full blast, almost 100% of the time.

 

[Smith6612]

My laptop really isn't a problem unless I'm playing games and listening to music at the same time, and either way, I'm not that much of a gamer. It's running at 46 degrees Celsius right now, but the only thing I have running is Firefox with two tabs and AOL Instant Messenger.

I have a Toshiba Portégé M400, and there was an issue with the fan being too loud. From what I can literally hear from my laptop, I think the fan on my laptop might already be running at full blast, almost 100% of the time.

Your laptop isn't running a Celeron or a desktop based Pentium IV, is it? The newer laptops I've seen now a days with the Core 2 Duo/AMD Dual cores actually run quite cool and don't need that big of a fan.

 

[adamparkzer]

Your laptop isn't running a Celeron or a desktop based Pentium IV, is it? The newer laptops I've seen now a days with the Core 2 Duo/AMD Dual cores actually run quite cool and don't need that big of a fan.

I actually have no clue, other guys in my dorm took off all the stickers on my laptop last year, and I didn't really pay attention to the specific statistics of my laptop. I don't know too much about processors, either.

 

[Smith6612]

Then CPU-Z is your friend

http://cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

[adamparkzer]

So I installed and ran it, and got a giant list of results. Processors are just about the one and only computer-related item that I have next to no knowledge about, and what the program spat out at me, I don't know how to interpret.

CPU
Name: Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T5600
Code Name: Merom
Package: Socket 479 mPGA
Technology: 65 nm
Core VID: 1.063 V
Specification: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz

Motherboard
Manufacturer: TOSHIBA
Model: Portable PC Version A0
Chipset: Intel i945GM Rev. 03
Southbridge: Intel 82801GHM (ICH7-M/U)
LPCIO: SMSC

BIOS: Toshiba Version 3.80

Does anyone want to help me make some sense out of all that information?

 

[alexandgruntz]

But the laptop running at 90 celcius reminds me of the CPU Stove video on YouTube. And yes, it's not unusual to see a laptop running that warm.

I thought my Eee running at 66 degrees was hot - it could be used as a heater (useful, as it's winter).

 

[fguy64]

An overheated PC can also be caused by a malfunctioning firewall.

 

[Smith6612]

So I installed and ran it, and got a giant list of results. Processors are just about the one and only computer-related item that I have next to no knowledge about, and what the program spat out at me, I don't know how to interpret.

CPU
Name: Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T5600
Code Name: Merom
Package: Socket 479 mPGA
Technology: 65 nm
Core VID: 1.063 V
Specification: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz

Motherboard
Manufacturer: TOSHIBA
Model: Portable PC Version A0
Chipset: Intel i945GM Rev. 03
Southbridge: Intel 82801GHM (ICH7-M/U)
LPCIO: SMSC

BIOS: Toshiba Version 3.80

Does anyone want to help me make some sense out of all that information?

I can say that it's a pretty decent laptop. The information at the top is your processor information. It's name of course, it's Code Name which is basically like it's architecture design name, the Technology which is basically how small the chip is, Package is the kind of socket or "port" that is used for the CPU to connect to the motherboard, then the processor's voltage and name with speed.

The second bit of information is on your motherboard. It shows who the maker of the board is, the model of the motherboard, the Chipset which shows what kind of components your board would possibly have as well as who manufactured much of the board (also the name of the Northbridge, which controls the system like the processor), the Southbridge, which is what controls PCI/AGP/PCI-E/Network/Sound/ETC hardware on your system (Southbridges are found on newer systems and more expensive motherboards from older PCs!). The LPCIO, I'd have to look into that but I'd take a wild guess on that one and say it has something to do with external peripherals.

So while the processor itself may not be the heat causing agent in the laptop, the GPU (the video card) especially if they're nVidia based or ATi based are nutorious for producing heat (much like how my 3x GTX280s each need their own fan and plenty of space because without a fan and some decent space, the cards would burn up!). Download GPU-Z and post up the information on your video card if it can detect it.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/


Also if you can, use CPU-Z to find out what kind of RAM your system has. If you can give me the type of RAM, as well as how much RAM you have and it's clock speed (shown by CPU-Z) I'll get a better idea of where the heat is coming from.

 

[adamparkzer]

An overheated PC can also be caused by a malfunctioning firewall.

... What are you talking about? One piece of software that isn't working doesn't make your laptop overheat. I think I disabled my firewall, actually, because it keeps blocking incoming connections for multiplayer LAN games. I should reenable it - I don't play games that often anyway.

Also if you can, use CPU-Z to find out what kind of RAM your system has. If you can give me the type of RAM, as well as how much RAM you have and it's clock speed (shown by CPU-Z) I'll get a better idea of where the heat is coming from.

I'll grab that information when I get home. I'm in a class right now.

 

[fguy64]

... What are you talking about? One piece of software that isn't working doesn't make your laptop overheat. I think I disabled my firewall, actually, because it keeps blocking incoming connections for multiplayer LAN games. I should reenable it - I don't play games that often anyway.


I'll grab that information when I get home. I'm in a class right now.

My reference to a malfunctioning firewall was a joke I stole from a Dilbert cartoon. Think about it.