Questions of a technological fuckwit

[rcgills]

Slick or anyone else, know anything about PC fans? Think one of the fans has gone on my PC - the computer was running very slow and the fan seemed to be working overtime. I blew some of the dust off the top of the PC, but since then, it won't stay switched on for more than about 10 minutes before going into standby. The top of the PC feels pretty hot, I'd say probably hotter than it used to get before today, but I couldn't really be 100% sure of that.

A few questions, some of which are probably stupid, hence the "technological fuckwit" comment.

1) If the PC has 2 fans, should they both be spinning all the time? Shining a torch inside the case, there seems to be a large fan down the side that starts spinning when I turn the PC on, and a smaller one on the top which doesn't.

2) I've checked the CMOS settings under PC health status, it says CPU fan speed 1128, system fan speed N/A. Does the N/A mean I've not even got a system fan, or does it mean I've got one and it's packed up? Or would it say 0 rather than N/A if it had packed up?

3) I've got shitloads of work to do, and really don't have the time to spare to take it to the shop and get it looked at (it's still under guarantee). Is there any other way to cool it down in the mean time so I can actually use it for more than 10 mins at a time (I've got a laptop but I fucking hate working on a laptop). **Stupid question alert** - if I get a normal room fan and point it towards the vent where the broken fan is, will that help to keep it cool?

 

[swooperman]

Sorry, cant help but i did have a similar problem with my laptop recently with the fan staying on most of the time (still does, but I'm told laptops do that)
I am, however looking forward to the answer on that **stupid question**

 

[slick]

I'll be very suprised if one of the fans on the case is causing it, whip the top or side off the pc and look at the fan covering the cpu on the motherboard, give it a good hovering or blow the dust out of it.

If that still doesn't work you'll need get some heatsink compund as it must have dried up and no longer making a good thermal bridge from the cpu to the heatsink (chunk of metal sat above the cpu with a fan on top)
apply the compund sparingly, put a couple of blobs (the size of a grain of rice) on top of the cpu then spread using something pliable (i use a strip cut off an old credit card) until the surface of the cpu is covered.

I forgot to metion clean the top of the cpu and heat sink of the old compund using alcohol or similar, before applying new compound.

 

[rcgills]

Cheers Slick. I'll just take it back to the shop, I think

 

[slick]

It's not a big job and you could get a small tube of heatsink compund for a couple of quid.

 

[rcgills]

Leaving aside for one moment the fact that I've not got a clue how to say "heatsink compound" in Spanish , I'd rather not risk fucking around with it myself. It's under guarantee anyway (and has a seal where the side panel would come off saying to check the warranty conditions before breaking the seal).

Just wanted to get an idea of whether it was likely to be the fan that was causing the problem, that was all. Cheers anyway