- Mar 13, 2013
- 13
- 0
- 10,510
I have an 8-year-old Acer Aspire desktop. The specs are here:
ASE 380-UD440A
Windows 7 32-bit SP1
AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4400+
2.3Ghz
2 GB Ram
The unit is a little underpowered, but it's fine for ordinary tasks. The problem is that recently something in the CPU starts running faster and faster until an alarm sounds. Once or twice it has actually shut off to save itself from burning out, I guess.
The problem sometimes comes up when I try try to run a few tasks at the same time, like having some browser windows and some MS Word documents open. As I said, I know it's underpowered.
However, the issue seems connected more to heat. When I keep an AC blowing directly on the tower, it runs fine and I can do as much as I want, everything considered. The problem occurs most when I don't have the air blowing on it. It's not as if the CPU is overheating especially, but something starts running out of control, even when I close everything and nothing is running.
I also run something called Process Explorer by sysinternals.com to check how much power different processes are using, and it seems that the CPU is running at about the same percentage of its capacity when the AC is on, but overall it doesn't start running so fast.
Could a temperature sensor or cooling fan in the CPU be malfunctioning? As I mentioned, the unit has seen a lot of use. For instance, the CMOS battery must be run down because the date and time no longer update when I start the computer. I need to learn how to replace it so I don't have to always reset date and time.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
ASE 380-UD440A
Windows 7 32-bit SP1
AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4400+
2.3Ghz
2 GB Ram
The unit is a little underpowered, but it's fine for ordinary tasks. The problem is that recently something in the CPU starts running faster and faster until an alarm sounds. Once or twice it has actually shut off to save itself from burning out, I guess.
The problem sometimes comes up when I try try to run a few tasks at the same time, like having some browser windows and some MS Word documents open. As I said, I know it's underpowered.
However, the issue seems connected more to heat. When I keep an AC blowing directly on the tower, it runs fine and I can do as much as I want, everything considered. The problem occurs most when I don't have the air blowing on it. It's not as if the CPU is overheating especially, but something starts running out of control, even when I close everything and nothing is running.
I also run something called Process Explorer by sysinternals.com to check how much power different processes are using, and it seems that the CPU is running at about the same percentage of its capacity when the AC is on, but overall it doesn't start running so fast.
Could a temperature sensor or cooling fan in the CPU be malfunctioning? As I mentioned, the unit has seen a lot of use. For instance, the CMOS battery must be run down because the date and time no longer update when I start the computer. I need to learn how to replace it so I don't have to always reset date and time.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram