So.... My computer's pretty old, and some of its parts have been upgraded/replaced a few times, at a local, small PC repair business (only replaced the RAM on my own). Of the few times I've had to switch out parts, myself, and that they've worked on it, we've cleaned it out of dust, a few times (it's never been terrible, from what I recall), and upgraded the power supply a couple times.
In the past month, or maybe... let's say, since the start of this year, my computer's been spontaneously shutting down, and I'm pretty certain it's due to my CPU getting insanely hot.
I've recently had to adjust where my PC is set up, in the room it's in; it used to be sitting under a more open desk, but now, it's sitting under a new desk, wherein one of the wider sides of the tower is facing a wall (but with maybe 3 inches of space between the case, and the wall, on that side); the narrower faces of the front, and back (where all of its ports, and power toggles are) are facing two solid pieces of the desk's wood (but with about an inch of space between the wood, and those faces of the tower); and one side is completely exposed to the open air of the room, albeit that air-flow itself might be a bit poor. I try my best to keep the ventilation slats clean, and dust doesn't appear to accumulate too badly, on the outside.
If I had to guess, one of the fans got jacked up (I've never had this computer crashing so often like this, before; 4 times, tonight, in the span of 7 hours).
Right now, I only have Google Chrome open, and it's at 60Celsius CPU temperature; but, earlier tonight, I saw it peaking at somewhere around 90Celsius or higher...
An application, (that is, Core Temp), says my Tjunction max temperature is 70C, so I'd assume that if my CPU is anywhere from 50C, to 55C, to upwards of 70C, and no higher than 20*C above the Tj. max temperature... I should be fine...
The thing is, this sort of temperature is being clocked, again, when my Task Manager is showing that I'm only hitting ~50% CPU usage, 30% Memory, 25% GPU. That is to say, not much is really happening with my resources, and it's very easy, apparently, to push the temperature over the edge?
My family is convinced that there's probably just dust inside the case that can be blown out with a can of air, and I can't convince them (for whatever bloody reason) that I'm pretty certain this just needs to be taken into a repair shop.
So, the CPU model in use, is an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (Thuban), that I bought in like-new conditions (as far as I'm aware), maybe a couple years back, to replace the stock CPU.
The PC was (back when it was in factory condition, before the upgrades) an HP Pavilion P7-1054 desktop. And yes, so, it's an ancient pre-built, found in a Best Buy (probably) some decade ago, maybe.
So, it's original CPU was an AMD Athlon II X4 645, until more recently.
I've also upgraded it from its default 6 gigabytes of memory, to 16, and from its 1 terabyte hard-drive to a 2 terabyte.
I've monitored my GPU temperature, and it probably averages at 20*C lower than my CPU's, at any given time (with some rare exceptions).
If I try and run something like Fortnite, for example, at the lowest settings that might be demanding on either CPU or GPU (literally, almost anything), and with its internal "Performance Mode" active, I'm still prone to my computer shutting down within 45 minutes of playing (I used to be able to play for hours, no problem).
I'm at the point where I've had to avoid running more than, say, 3-5+ tabs at once on my browser, and hate the fact that Discord is Chromium-based, and that it's normally my bread & butter to have running in the background, because it's... well, demanding, and just one more thing working my computer so hard. Y'know, just, I can't multitask like I used to be able to (though, undoubtedly, between my computer's age, and how I'd been doing that, there's probably been quite a bit of wear & tear).
For some reason, HP's official site no longer (at least, today) shows my model of PC and its original system specifications. Whatever the case, I upgraded to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti GPU some time ago (years, really), and it's been fine. Right now, it's sitting at 45C and my CPU's at 62C... so, pretty decent idle temperature, at ~10% CPU usage.
Right now, I have two industrial-sized fans pointed at the tower, hopefully set up so that colder air can flow in, and hot air can escape in the proper directions... but I've set this up before, and it's still sometimes not helped (either at all, or enough to prevent shutdowns).
I would normally expect my system to throttle itself so hard, if it was overheating (or overworking, near 100% resource usage), but it just.. I mean, sometimes, it seems to freeze up very briefly, but usually... just... poof.
The BIOS version/date runs back to 12/18/2011, and the motherboard's.. not sure if I'm getting this right, but something like a FOXCONN 2AB1 (AMD) something-or-other. So yeah, that sucker's a bit on the ancient side, which is great... and, yeah, as I upgraded the GPU and whatnot, I might've run one power-source 'til it was shot, or needed to at least upgrade it one other time, and I think beyond that point, that became a non-issue, but the cooling system (is probably just fans) and probably as ancient as the motherboard.
So... apologies for some of the more irrelevant information on system specs, but, yeah, I'm at a bit of a loss.
If I take it in to be checked on, should I just ask them to kinda gently run some sort of benchmarks on it, to see how it's performing (versus how you'd expect it to perform) so they can get a sense for what's wrong? Just tell them that I suspect there's an overheating issue, and then find out if I just need to get a new cooling system setup?
'Cus, I'm really concerned that, each time the temperature hits critical levels, that it's gonna further frick up, and fry, my hardware into damaged conditions, so.. I'd like to get it fixed as soon as possible, and it's frustrating because, to a degree, I need to use it (though I don't intend to overwork it, either).. so, it kinda feels like, when a car starts suffering a mechanical issue, and if you don't fix that, the rest of your car has a better chance of falling apart in a chain reaction.
View: https://imgur.com/a/flyM22R
(the site wouldn't let me insert this as an image, so...) View: https://imgur.com/a/EDT9CTm
But, yeah, like... y'all, this is even if I'm running some mundane game on Roblox, at the lowest in-application graphical settings possible. Normally, my PC would struggle a bit (for obvious reasons) if I ran some light, 2D Steam-sourced game, and whatever other game (I'd usually only run one at a time), but if I tried that now, it'd probably crash my PC quick.
So, the crash is, I guess... I mean, just, out of nowhere, screen fades to black, power is cut off (have to power back on the PC), and I'm pretty much resorting to letting the PC stay off for at least 5 minutes before restarting it, to give it some grace-time to breathe without its fans... I just...
Thoughts, anybody? I.... the thing is, well, there's not that many plugs back there, and they probably won't be tangled up too badly (if I had to unplug them, and pop them back in later), but I really am reluctant to unplug everything, just to open up the case, and check for dust, y'know? I mean, taking the time to futz around with the screws, 'n' all.. I just feel like it'd be better to have someone take a look at the tower, as a whole.
I mean, what, something wrong with a (CPU) fan, or heatsink, in all likelihood?
In the past month, or maybe... let's say, since the start of this year, my computer's been spontaneously shutting down, and I'm pretty certain it's due to my CPU getting insanely hot.
I've recently had to adjust where my PC is set up, in the room it's in; it used to be sitting under a more open desk, but now, it's sitting under a new desk, wherein one of the wider sides of the tower is facing a wall (but with maybe 3 inches of space between the case, and the wall, on that side); the narrower faces of the front, and back (where all of its ports, and power toggles are) are facing two solid pieces of the desk's wood (but with about an inch of space between the wood, and those faces of the tower); and one side is completely exposed to the open air of the room, albeit that air-flow itself might be a bit poor. I try my best to keep the ventilation slats clean, and dust doesn't appear to accumulate too badly, on the outside.
If I had to guess, one of the fans got jacked up (I've never had this computer crashing so often like this, before; 4 times, tonight, in the span of 7 hours).
Right now, I only have Google Chrome open, and it's at 60Celsius CPU temperature; but, earlier tonight, I saw it peaking at somewhere around 90Celsius or higher...
An application, (that is, Core Temp), says my Tjunction max temperature is 70C, so I'd assume that if my CPU is anywhere from 50C, to 55C, to upwards of 70C, and no higher than 20*C above the Tj. max temperature... I should be fine...
The thing is, this sort of temperature is being clocked, again, when my Task Manager is showing that I'm only hitting ~50% CPU usage, 30% Memory, 25% GPU. That is to say, not much is really happening with my resources, and it's very easy, apparently, to push the temperature over the edge?
My family is convinced that there's probably just dust inside the case that can be blown out with a can of air, and I can't convince them (for whatever bloody reason) that I'm pretty certain this just needs to be taken into a repair shop.
So, the CPU model in use, is an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (Thuban), that I bought in like-new conditions (as far as I'm aware), maybe a couple years back, to replace the stock CPU.
The PC was (back when it was in factory condition, before the upgrades) an HP Pavilion P7-1054 desktop. And yes, so, it's an ancient pre-built, found in a Best Buy (probably) some decade ago, maybe.
So, it's original CPU was an AMD Athlon II X4 645, until more recently.
I've also upgraded it from its default 6 gigabytes of memory, to 16, and from its 1 terabyte hard-drive to a 2 terabyte.
I've monitored my GPU temperature, and it probably averages at 20*C lower than my CPU's, at any given time (with some rare exceptions).
If I try and run something like Fortnite, for example, at the lowest settings that might be demanding on either CPU or GPU (literally, almost anything), and with its internal "Performance Mode" active, I'm still prone to my computer shutting down within 45 minutes of playing (I used to be able to play for hours, no problem).
I'm at the point where I've had to avoid running more than, say, 3-5+ tabs at once on my browser, and hate the fact that Discord is Chromium-based, and that it's normally my bread & butter to have running in the background, because it's... well, demanding, and just one more thing working my computer so hard. Y'know, just, I can't multitask like I used to be able to (though, undoubtedly, between my computer's age, and how I'd been doing that, there's probably been quite a bit of wear & tear).
For some reason, HP's official site no longer (at least, today) shows my model of PC and its original system specifications. Whatever the case, I upgraded to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti GPU some time ago (years, really), and it's been fine. Right now, it's sitting at 45C and my CPU's at 62C... so, pretty decent idle temperature, at ~10% CPU usage.
Right now, I have two industrial-sized fans pointed at the tower, hopefully set up so that colder air can flow in, and hot air can escape in the proper directions... but I've set this up before, and it's still sometimes not helped (either at all, or enough to prevent shutdowns).
I would normally expect my system to throttle itself so hard, if it was overheating (or overworking, near 100% resource usage), but it just.. I mean, sometimes, it seems to freeze up very briefly, but usually... just... poof.
The BIOS version/date runs back to 12/18/2011, and the motherboard's.. not sure if I'm getting this right, but something like a FOXCONN 2AB1 (AMD) something-or-other. So yeah, that sucker's a bit on the ancient side, which is great... and, yeah, as I upgraded the GPU and whatnot, I might've run one power-source 'til it was shot, or needed to at least upgrade it one other time, and I think beyond that point, that became a non-issue, but the cooling system (is probably just fans) and probably as ancient as the motherboard.
So... apologies for some of the more irrelevant information on system specs, but, yeah, I'm at a bit of a loss.
If I take it in to be checked on, should I just ask them to kinda gently run some sort of benchmarks on it, to see how it's performing (versus how you'd expect it to perform) so they can get a sense for what's wrong? Just tell them that I suspect there's an overheating issue, and then find out if I just need to get a new cooling system setup?
'Cus, I'm really concerned that, each time the temperature hits critical levels, that it's gonna further frick up, and fry, my hardware into damaged conditions, so.. I'd like to get it fixed as soon as possible, and it's frustrating because, to a degree, I need to use it (though I don't intend to overwork it, either).. so, it kinda feels like, when a car starts suffering a mechanical issue, and if you don't fix that, the rest of your car has a better chance of falling apart in a chain reaction.
View: https://imgur.com/a/flyM22R
(the site wouldn't let me insert this as an image, so...) View: https://imgur.com/a/EDT9CTm
But, yeah, like... y'all, this is even if I'm running some mundane game on Roblox, at the lowest in-application graphical settings possible. Normally, my PC would struggle a bit (for obvious reasons) if I ran some light, 2D Steam-sourced game, and whatever other game (I'd usually only run one at a time), but if I tried that now, it'd probably crash my PC quick.
So, the crash is, I guess... I mean, just, out of nowhere, screen fades to black, power is cut off (have to power back on the PC), and I'm pretty much resorting to letting the PC stay off for at least 5 minutes before restarting it, to give it some grace-time to breathe without its fans... I just...
Thoughts, anybody? I.... the thing is, well, there's not that many plugs back there, and they probably won't be tangled up too badly (if I had to unplug them, and pop them back in later), but I really am reluctant to unplug everything, just to open up the case, and check for dust, y'know? I mean, taking the time to futz around with the screws, 'n' all.. I just feel like it'd be better to have someone take a look at the tower, as a whole.
I mean, what, something wrong with a (CPU) fan, or heatsink, in all likelihood?
Last edited:
From, a very dumb idiot.
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