computer turns itself off - heat problem but fans OK...

[rossy t]

got a mates pc i went to have a look at it.

its got a fresh install of WINXP done by yours truely about 4 months old and it aint software/driver based.

its some P4 fujitsu PC thats about 12~ months old (out of warrenty). the problem is randomly after it could be 15 minutes or 15 hours when doing stuff on the PC *BOOM* it switches properly off. no standby, just off. sometimes if u try and power it back on it wont turn on like its draining the capacitors in the motherboard or something.

culprits could be psu, cpu, ram (i would have thought blue screen) CPU fan dead.

i loaded up the PC in the bios after it had been cold for 12 hours, after 5 minutes running i get the following readouts:

vcore 1.31

ddrvtt 1.26

vcc3 3.31

+12v 11.93

sys temp 26C

CPU temp 90C

cpu fan speed 2721 rpm

its when it got to 90C i turned it off as i assume its related to this. the thing is the OEM heatsink fan is spinning happily, and good RPM so i am confused as to why the temp is so high in a completely standard system that has never been opened and had heat sink meddled with???

your thoughts please on how to fix this?

 

[rossy t]

I know the reason
Had the same problem with my previous system..


Got to 114 degrees - Isn't that a record?


Well, take the fan of the heatsink, and you will find out, IT WILL BE CLOGGED UP WITH DUST I MEAN THICK DUST!


Hoover it all out/take it out some how lol, should be fine, mine was so bad it damaged the fan lol

wow, i think you're right! i took the heatsink off and unfortunately the chip is welded to the heatsink with some glue paste, but i dont believe that to be the problem. the problem is the big heat pipe / plastic thing where it joins the heatsink is completely thick with gunk and is truely clogged. ill get some compressed air and clean it tommorow and report back. my friend will be really pleased i had told them worse case scenarios like bad PSU, etc, etc

thanks to both for quick reply.

 

[rossy t]

hey again sjohal, you seem cool so thanks man.

the pc is a family PC that resides up stairs in a smokey pub, its not left on or anything like that but it is quite heavily used so it would make sense that it got all clogged up. im going to do as you say, clean it and see how they get on, they are not "power users" so will just be looking for the cheapest/simplest solution.

 

[rossy t]

just an update, **** had no compressed air in stock (WTF? thats like going to tescos and them not having milk and tins of beans) anyway, i took the HSF apart and hoovered it out put it back on the PC is much happier, temps stable @ 65C no crashing.

im not an intel P4 man but my AMD 3 gig computer runs at 35C full load so i think thats too high, im going to purchase one of the arctic cooler range HSF to bring it down to a more reasonable level to extend the computers life

thanks all. PRIEST NOT NEEDED...FOR NOW.