Clueness and in need of assistance.

whatcomesnext · 10 Jan 2015 at 17:40

My son's friend recently passed away and requested beforehand that my son be given his gaming computer as they often played together. However this computer seems to be a fair bit more powerful than the our family computer and it gets very noisy when my son has tried it out. I took it into a local shop where i was told this is due to the CPU fan and cooler (i think!) not being sufficient, he then suggested a particular model that comes in at around £60 and recommended this website as one for advice.
My question is could you lovely folks possibly find the time to take a quick look at the photos im providing and identify what it is we need and perhaps suggest some options for me to purchase, im afraid i dont know the name of the computers case but ive been reliably informed the motherboard is a M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 with a AMD Phenom X4 965 processor, i hope that makes sense!

Legend · 10 Jan 2015 at 18:17

Well, first off, that's not a very powerful CPU or system it would appear. Can't tell what graphics card is in there though, which will determine gaming performance.

The CPU/cooler may not be the only culprit for noise, as the case fans could also be contributing to this, and the GPU also perhaps (can't see what this is though as I say).

For this kind of system, you don't need to spend much on a new CPU/cooler, £60 would probably be excessive I think. What are your intentions with this system?

whatcomesnext · 10 Jan 2015 at 18:33

Well my son naturally would like to keep it as is and just casually play games on it, but it would be nice if we could quieten it down as it really is rather noisy. Is it the amount of fans in the case causing the noise or their quality? We have searched and the graphics card is a Geforce GTX 275, hope this helps.

mickyflinn · 10 Jan 2015 at 19:14

There is is a utility fot that motherboard called AMD cool and quiet it may quieten the cpu fan down a bit.

Here is the download for your motherboard, select operating system then utilities.

http://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/M4A88TDV_EVOUSB3/HelpDesk_Download/

whatcomesnext · 10 Jan 2015 at 19:24

Thats a great start thank you! Will this restrict the performance of the machine in any way?

mickyflinn · 10 Jan 2015 at 22:56

whatcomesnext said:
Thats a great start thank you! Will this restrict the performance of the machine in any way?

No , it just increases/decreases the fan speed of the cpu cooler fan as the system needs.

Danny75 · 11 Jan 2015 at 03:22

In combination with Mickey's suggestion, and looking at the pics you helpfully provided, you'll need to get round to cleaning the case fans and the CPU heatsink/fan, too. The dust build-up can account for a lot of noise as the fan spins faster to compensate. The video card's fans/heatsink may have dust too.

Shampoo · 11 Jan 2015 at 06:16

+1 on giving it a clean. Don't make the fans work harder than they have to due to increased heat from dust blankets all over the components.

whatcomesnext · 11 Jan 2015 at 14:22

Righto I think we can manage that! Do we not need to bother with any type of fan upgrade then? If so are we limited by space in any way

doyll · 11 Jan 2015 at 15:16

Some good advice here.

When you clean the CPU cooler and GPU make sure the cooler fins behind the fans are clean. This is where most of the duct-bunnies usually collect and restrict airflow. Also make sure the intake vent grills and sometimes filters are clean.

Take some more detailed pics of components and vents and try to find the name & model of graphics card, case, and what fans models are. This will help us in giving educated guidance to quieter and better cooling.