Chassis fans turned off, system overheat. Damage?

[Chang Noi]

I've screwed up, and I'm trying to figure how badly.

I have two chassis fans, one on the door and one blowing out the back, as well as my CPU Heatsink and fan.

Yesterday I swapped out the power cables with the intention of powering the fans from the motherboard rather than a PSU rail as I'd had it.

After swapping the cables out I plugged put my case back without checking to see if the fans were actually working or not.

So I went on to play Far Cry 2 for the next 4 hours, before I got a BSOD. I rebooted and assumed it was it a software problem as this copy of Far Cry 2 crashes alot anyway.

But it crashed again an hour and wouldn't reboot. That's when I thought to check the fans again and -

None of them were on! My poor CPU fan was the only thing cooling the system.

By the time I got my case open it was quite hot. The CPU heatsink was hot to the touch and the MB Passive cooling was even hotter.

Luckily I've got a decent cooler (Arctic Cooling Freezer 7), and I'm hoping that saved my CPU, but how can I check? What I'm hoping is that it was my RAM that was having a fit - it's cheap crap that's been overvolted and overclocked to keep up with the CPU. I like to think my x38 would survive as well since it's only running at 1333 FSB.

I'm running a Q6600 at 3.0 ghz, Vcore 1.25. Can I check for CPU damage with Prime95? Am I going to have to de-clock my Q6600 forever?

I don't have any temp readings unfortunately. As soon as I realized the problem I opened the case and fixed my fan cables.

Opinions?

 

[Zecow]

LOL... chang noi = little elephant... sweet!!

I dont follow - you swapped the chasis fans... what does it have to do with the CPU fans? Either that or you accidentally knocked the cables off?

If your cpu really did go through that torture... I would not recommend you putting it through prime anymore. I think its gone through enuff.

You might want to check what the actual issue is - a Case fan shouldn't result in your heatsink being too hot to touch.

 

[V3NOM]

I'd be a bit more worried about the mobo and graphics card than cpu...

 

[bobbknight]

well boot it on up and see what you get.
most stuff nowadays just cuts back before it fries.

 

[outlw6669]

Test the RAM with Memtest.
Test the CPU with prime95 in small FFT.
Watch your temps with coretemp, make sure it does not go above 75c.
If every thing tests fine, you should be alright.
As bobbknight stated, most parts will throttle back before they fry.

 

[iluvgillgill]

loop 3dmark overnight and see if it survive.if it does i think its all good.

 

[Chang Noi]

>I dont follow - you swapped the chasis fans... what does it have to do >with the CPU fans? Either that or you accidentally knocked the cables >off?

My two chassis fans had been running on a PSU rail. I installed adapters on the fan power cables so they would run on the 3-pin fan connectors on the motherboard instead. But those adapters turned out to be faulty, so the fans didn't get power.

It does boot and seems to run normally, but I know there can be subtle damage to components that doesn't appear under normal circumstances.

My graphics card has a dual slot cooler and it's own vent to get cool air from outside the case, so I'm not too worried about it.

Thanks to those to have replied. I'll put it to work with Prime95 and Memtest tonight to see what happens. Mabye after I mount some more fans in the 5.25 drive bays to cool my memory...

Chang Noi

(Yes, it means little elephant. That's my nickname here in Thailand)

 

[V3NOM]

um dual slot graphics cards dont actually suck in cold air from outside, they blow it outside so the rest of the case heats up. in your case, (no pun intended) the gfx card is sucking in hot air from the case and then exhausting it... so i guess you could call it a case fan