Windows 7 - Which one is dying?.......

as far as i can gather (not much) i have either one. two, or three problems.
i have noticed a severe decrease in load times, video plat back, and just general performance of my machine. i've boiled it down to 1 of 3 things.

1. My cpu is finally kicking the bucket. the temperature diode isn't working, so idk how hot it's running. would explain the lagged min/maxing of windows, and other little snags.
2. My Gfx card is about dead. the fan screams all the time, possibly over worked. that coinsides with jittery video playback, some other anomalies.
3. My machine needs to go the way of Old Yeller. time to build a new....

1. (im flat broke so scenario 3 in like a death sentace)

I've already ruled out viruses, excess processes, the usual clutter build up, so on.
im hoping some one knows of a few tests that i can run, to check out the condition of my hardware (mainly cpu/gpu) any help is always appreciated....
and i have two 1's here....

any thoughts?

When was the last time you took a day or two to thoroughly clean out the system? Video cards with fans on them will build up a *lot* of dust - I clean my machine every 3-6 months - the CPU cooler I have is prone to collecting dust, as are my video cards, my mobo, my RAM, my PSU....

See, the problem with dust is not only is it not conducive to thermal transfer but also that it impedes airflow over thermal radiators. It's a double whammy - and the less cooling the hotter things get.

Spend your last money on cooling.

Open the box, clean everything, make a good cooling plan, keeping in mind the room you have, the fans, connectors and speed controllers you need and tidy up the cable salad.

Take the biggest fans you can fit to reduce noise.

CPU cooler is not the main focus, getting rid of the heat in the box asap is.

Good luck

i just cleaned the hell out of it today, like 3-4 hours ago. no change, except my rear fan is quiter. still slugging around, like a sick dog

btw, canned air tastes like crap.

Umm, when I say clean...

I mean remove the CPU cooler from the CPU, clean all old thermal paste / grease, take apart the cooler and wash the heatsink (or blow it out if you have access to a high-power air blower - do this outside!), and the same for your video card(s), case, etc.



Everything (mostly, I leave the fans in place if I can get to them easily enough) comes out and gets thoroughly cleaned. That is why I said it was a 1-2 day process - drying time if you hand wash the coolers....

last time i did that was ... maybe 3-4 months ago. my pc have never acted like this, thats why im leaning toward hardware failure. i figure its one or the other (cpu/gpu)
.both are about a $70 fix, so i don't really want to replace one, and have the other hit critical mass a few days later....

Hence the cleaning. If you do a very thorough cleaning and it still acts that way, then it is definitely time to go. OTOH, if the cleaning extends the life of your product, even if for only 2 months, that's 2 months you have to save for a replacement product....

You seriously tear it down to this level every 3 to 6 months to clean it out???? At work, I've cleaned out many old machines that have run for a couple of years with no cleaning whatsoever...so I have seen really dirty and disgusting. At home, I'm using Antec cases which have air filter screens in them in front where they pull in the air and these trap quite a bit of the dust and crap coming in. After about a year of use on a Sonata II, I took the side panel off and went to blow the PC out with some compressed air and there was hardly anything there at all. Seriously, it reminded me of a new build. So, I'd say the air filter screens in the antec cases really work out well.

well after leaving my pc on for 2 days straight, now it seems fine... maybe it just needed a 48 hour warm up? i have the side panel off for now, so it isn't blowing flesh melting air out of the rear vent..... hmm...

after further inspection, (dont know how i misssd it) my gfx card fan seems to be shot, i might have to replace it (new card )

Yes. My machine sits on my desk 'foot board' about 2 inches off the ground - and the pile carpet we have in the house, though 20 years old, still puts out tremendous amounts of fibers.

I just went through the entire rigmarole of cleaning it - and I took apart both of my GTX 260s to clean them and took pics (I wish I had taken pics of the Tuniq - you'd understand very quickly why this sort of cleaning is a must for me.

I'll have the pics up later on today and will link to them in this post....

If the case off makes it run better, you obviously have a cooling issue - and more than likely that means not enough (fresh) air getting into the system - or else you run in a very hot environment to begin with. I'd say keep running it with the case door off for the time being until you can figure out exactly why not enough air is getting in (Hint - try to figure out if your front cover comes off - and if it does, see just how dusty it is in there).