Last week a family member rang up to say their computer (built by me 3 years ago) was only staying powered on for about 10 minutes at a time. Seeing as we were going to see them that weekend I took some spares along. When I got there the machine was inside a cupboard (apparently where its been running for a year) I got it out and opened up. The inside was thick with dust and crap as there is a hamster cage above the cupboard, so first task was clean the crap out.
The system is an old DDR1 rig with a socket A AMD processor that has the Alpha 80mm bolt on heat sink. That was full of compacted dust, so i cleaned that out with a toothbrush. I changed the 80mm fan for a brand new ys-tech 80mm and cleaned up the front and back 120mm fans.
The case is one of the cheaper Antecs that came with a 300watt PSU, this was a little dusty so I cleaned it out with some air.
Putting it back together it worked fine over lunch when we went to pub and continued running all afternoon while we were there installing updates etc.
The family member called back last night to say it’s back to the 10 minute of life.
For the time being I said take it out of the cupboard (there was no airflow inside and it was very cramped) and run it out in the open.
On the first visit I took an old Enermax PSU thinking the original was knackered, but it looked ok and not much dust came out with the air can. Is it worth swapping?
The system is an old DDR1 rig with a socket A AMD processor that has the Alpha 80mm bolt on heat sink. That was full of compacted dust, so i cleaned that out with a toothbrush. I changed the 80mm fan for a brand new ys-tech 80mm and cleaned up the front and back 120mm fans.
The case is one of the cheaper Antecs that came with a 300watt PSU, this was a little dusty so I cleaned it out with some air.
Putting it back together it worked fine over lunch when we went to pub and continued running all afternoon while we were there installing updates etc.
The family member called back last night to say it’s back to the 10 minute of life.
For the time being I said take it out of the cupboard (there was no airflow inside and it was very cramped) and run it out in the open.
On the first visit I took an old Enermax PSU thinking the original was knackered, but it looked ok and not much dust came out with the air can. Is it worth swapping?
