Delta Virtual Airlines
Water Cooler

Tyler Devereaux wrote:

Miklos:

I'm late to the party, but I'm glad to hear that cleaning your computer solved the problem. Tom was spot on: cooling is often the first thing to look into with the situation you described.

Now that you've temporarily fixed the problem, though, I would encourage you to look into why your computer is getting so dirty that it's causing significant cooling problems. Cleaning out the case is definitely a good idea regardless, but it seems a bit odd to me that you've run into this issue multiple times with the same computer. Modern(ish) electronics are pretty good at protecting themselves from catastrophic thermal-induced failures; however, just because your computer has a built-in failsafe doesn't mean that everything is good if the failsafe hasn't kicked in.

You may want to consider a new case and/or a different arrangement of cooling fans. If you're open to the idea, many cases these days come with filtered vents and good seals to cut down on contaminants getting into the case. Also, you may consider looking into the topic of negative/positive/neutral-pressure case environments. There's some debate on which is best, and I don't want to spark anything, but IF your computer is in a dust-prone environment, you MAY consider a positive-pressure environment: the idea is, you have more volume of air being sucked into your case with intake fans than you have being pushed out with exhaust. In this configuration, air wants to escape your case, where there are vents or other little holes where air can seep through, that air is being expelled and, theoretically, less dust accumulates inside the case. By all means, do your own research and decide which (if any) solution makes the most sense for you, but I just wanted to give you something to consider, which may prove to be a more lasting solution to your cooling issue.

EDIT: Just to add onto my positive-pressure comment. I don't mean to insinuate that this idea requires 32 fans in your case. What I do for mine is simply have a larger intake fan, rated for more air movement, than I have for exhaust. Just two fans, one larger than the other.