Kokopelli

Hello GoneToPlaid, good to have you weigh in on this! Yes, it's an old heap of junk, that's for sure. According to your (well-researched, I'm sure) figures it should have packed in two years ago. So...I figure I'm 'ahead' two years. Not too shabby;) As I said way up there, after extensive cleaning, some new fans and replacing the old, dry thermal paste the PC performs like new and with some luck the D: drive will have survived despite my neglect. Or it won't in which case I have a spare plus it's backed up on my external 1TB drive. I guess I was just born lucky - deal with it. Oh, and lighten up some...it's-a not so bad. Göran

Thank you for your kind words trium. Yes, a machine has to breathe and get rid of excess heat just like you and me. You don't mistreat it - or yourself - without facing consequences. The problem is gone and I owe it all to other people such as yourself and Willy2 on this forum and helpful, caring people on other forums I turned to. - - - Nobody lives in a vacuum or 'does it all' him- or herself. Ubuntu - I am what I am because of who we all are; whatever my successes I always owe them to other people. And I love it!

Thank you Willy2. "Thumbs up for SPECCY !!!! Many computerhelp websites (e.g. "BleepingComputer") use this program to diagnose computerproblems." And no wonder! Like I said up there in the OP: "Running Speccy Free has helped me a lot, likely prevented..." Anyway thx for the heads-up re: D: - perhaps the drive will fail and perhaps not. I have been mighty busy for the past 8 hours, replacing the fan in the power supply (dead as a doornail) and fitting another one behind what member trium called the modesty panel. That position had a hole punched out for a fan as well as the four requisite holes to fasten it - but no fan. I had both fans saved since I looted and scrapped a Fujitsu Maxi-tower PC (lots of room in there, like a clothes closet;) so I am out nothing in the whole de-heating process exept the silicon paste. Here's the before-and-after Speccy screens: Ouch! And now: This looks better, the PC performs like new and with some luck the D: drive will have survived despite my neglect. And thanks to the excellent advice I have recieved from you and trium. Much obliged! Göran

Perhaps this is even better http://speccy.piriform.com/results/OBbuDWIyBTxq3vCJFReYrsQ /G

Oops...that didn't work for me, perhaps not for you. I got yet another error message. Hope I didn't break the Piriform server...NOT! Here is an old-fashioned partial screen-shot just in case:

Thank you Willy2. What a boon it is to talk to someone who knows their sh...stuff! I tried to your post, and got this Enough positivity is enough! Here is the snapshot, anyway: http://speccy.piriform.com/results/12Y7R7bCxlvO3eChaKEW6Nk Attempting to be less positive in the future, I remain yours truly. Göran

Thanks trium. "... i mean your hdds a little to hot." Alright, so the breakoff point is 50° then? "are they build in next on another?" Not really as the D:\ drive hangs underneath the HDD bay by some 1/2 inch, suspended in tie-wraps (for smoother running) while the C:\ drive is mounted above it in the last position of the bay. Perhaps I should increase the distance between the two? "is there a frontfan (for chassis)? --> is the frontfanport free of dust? (between frontfan-chassis and modesty panel of your tower?" No. It looks like this from the outside: the panel has tiny holes in it, there is some small air movement into the chassis but no fan. It's an ASUS barebones and came like that. I suppose I could mount a fan on the inside of the panel. "is the frontfanport free of dust?" The panel is dust free, there is right now some small air movement into the chassis as I said. But maybe a 4 or 5 inch fan on the inside would help. Should the direction of flow be out or in? Again thanks trium.

Running Speccy Free has helped me a lot, likely prevented hard disk failure on one drive and perhaps a CPU core(s) meltdown;) I had experienced sluggish performance (to put it mildly) of late; the CPU load as presented by Task Manager was forever at 50-100 percent even just loading another webpage... So sad... And for example running Freemake Video Downloader and then converting the .flv clip to .mp3 completely overwhelmed the machine and sent the CPU load through the roof - I couldn't play music in VLC at the same time without it stuttering unbearably but had to pause it for the duration. It was no fun. Running Speccy on April 26 to see what I could see, it looked like this: high temperatures all around. So a short while back I disassembled the machine and, sure enough, somebody had sneakily inserted an appalling amount of dust that was trapped in the aluminum radiator and CPU fan assembly (or I hadn't looked closely enough in there last time I vacuumed inside the PC, whatever). After vacuuming and when the dust had settled I replaced the silicon paste (which was bone-dry) with newly bought, reassembled and it's a whole different experience now to use the machine - just enjoyable as I remembered it. However, when I ran Speccy post-vacuuming etc I got this temperature warning/OK combination on one drive which I don't understand: Well - is the temperature OK or isn't it? Thank you. (Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit SP1, AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+, now at 55 °C)