Which one is dying?.......

[holo88]

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? :shock:

 

[johngalt]

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.

 

[SquonkSC]

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? :shock:

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

 

[holo88]

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.

 

[johngalt]

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.

   Warning

Make sure you do not try to wash actual components that use electricity - your fans, CPU, mobo, PSU, etc - else you'll need a lot longer than a day to dry them out and even then you may never get them dry enough and most of these devices have capacitors, which store electricity - so water is a bad thing!

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....

 

[holo88]

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....

 

[johngalt]

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....

 

[pparks1]

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.

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.

 

[holo88]

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 )

 

[johngalt]

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.

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....

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 )

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).

 

[johngalt]

OK, here are the pics I promised. I apologize for the lack of clarity - but this camera I was using is much more powerful, and in retrospect I should have been using the telephoto lens as opposed to bringing the camera in close proximity to the subject. Still, I was tired, and I did this Late Thursday night (3 AM my time).

Just to give you an idea, I took everything apart and cleaned thoroughly - something that hasn't been done in a year or so. CPU cooler came off, I checked all cable runs, and then had a flash of inspiration - the GPUs run hotter than my CPU so they need unbridled access to air - even with the air that gets blown in from the door fan, I felt that the active 120 mm fans on the HD (which I had positioned right in front of the cards) was blowing too much hot air onto the cards. The CPU cooler, OTOH, easily dissipates heat - (actually disassembled the entire thing, remove the fan out of the unit, and washed it in a sink - the dust accumulation was about 5 times worse than in the fan and radiator pic in the link - I am surprised I was not plagued by CPU heat issues). However, a funny thing happened - after a day of drying it wasn't fully dry (still water droplets left in between radiator fins) - so I took a hair dryer to it, aiming the hair dryer in the same direction as the normal airflow when the fan is in the cooler, and holding it upside down by the top of the copper base. Bad idea. Within 10 seconds the hot air from the hair dryer had transferred to the heat pipes, which sent it to the copper base - burning my fingers. So, yeah, the Tuniq does a whiz bang job of dissipating heat.

Also, for the first time since owning the GTX260s, I completely disassembled them (that is the primary focus of the pics) and cleaned and then re-assembled. I used Arctic Cleaning (a pair of solutions to break down existing thermal paste and then 'purify' the surface, priming for application of new thermal paste) and Arctic Silver 5 - I know, a lot of people say go with Ceramique or similar, but I have a large tube of AS5 and I am certainly not going to waste it....

I have everything assembled again, and I am happy to note that I even removed the chipset cooler and cleaned and re-applied thermal compound there as well - all told, about a day and a half down, but my GPU temps are 3-5 degrees cooler at idle than before, my CPU temps are from 33 to 37 degrees and since I moved a few things around, I am getting better airflow. I also replaced the stock ThermalTake 120mm fans (.30 Amps) with Antec Tri-Cools, both set to High, allowing for more air movement, lined the HDs up with CPU so there is direct air flow both into in front of and out behind the CPU cooler, and replaced the 92mm fan at the top of the case blowing upward with one of the old ThermalTake 120mm fans, still blowing upward.

Link with the pics (and pics have captions):

Picasa Web Albums - johnlgalt - The Great Cle...

 

[holo88]

my cpu fan is really weird... i tried prying it off to clean the plate out a little better, but i have to take the whole thing off to get to the plate. theres some kind of weirdo mechanism i cant figure out to just remove the fan. i have cleaned the old thermo paste off (maybe 4 months ago) but since i dont have any on haned, i figured i'd just clean the plate, which ended in epic fail, cuz like i said, i cant figure out how to get thr damn fan off, without total plate/bracket/plate removal....

its a really dumb setup, but i guess it's what i get for buying a MP machine
(mp= mass produced, fyi)

thanks for the help thus far guys