O.T. Nearly Ashamed To Post This Pic

[rbp71854]

Started having overheat shutdown of my Asus Rampage III that I built back in 2011. I figured that my Intel CPU had outlived its planned life.

Opened up the case and noticed that I had neglected for 11 years simple cleaning maintenance of the machine.

Digging deeper into the muck I removed the fans on either side of the CPU liquid cooling coil.

That white stuff on the fins of the coil is a solid layer of dust bunnies.

Uck I sure did a dis-service this normally reliable machine.

Bob

[Frosty]

Haha, lol - I replaced my worn down HDD yesterday and encountered a somewhat similar interior, though yours most definitely beats mine. My dust collection was mostly confined to the fans and mesh screens. Perhaps the investment in a compressed-air can isn't so superfluous as thought previously...

[Shessi]

Adds flavour you know Bob!

Been there, you feel a little embarrassed that you missed all that and let the ol' faithful machine down..lol.

Good reminder for people, and possibly stir people into a winter clean, instead of waiting until spring.

Cheers

Shessi

ps. Maybe as an update, you could let us know how it's running/temps etc after the clean, thanks.

[hairyspin]

I remember a regular member cured a serious graphics card problem by de-fluffing the thing, accompanied by much coughing and sneezing. Amazing how much dusty air gets pulled through our machines these days.

[gecko]

Might have been me. I was getting random and frequent full OS crashes. Eventually determined the GPU was overheating. Opened up the case and found the GPU fan ducting and cooling fins were completely filled with dust. Not to mention considerable accumulation most everywhere else. A thorough cleaning with compressed air, and all returned to normal. That machine soldiered on reliably for several more years.

So now I check semi regularly and do quick clean outs when I notice accumulation. As an aside, I think my current PC is more resistant to dust accumulation than the previous one. Not sure if there are new surface coatings or better air flow with the cooling fans, but I am blowing out much less dust than I used to.

[rbp71854]

Well machine all back together for test run.

Start-up and no joy. Still have shutdown because of overheat. Back to square one of troubleshooting. Starting to suspect component failure.

[wormbelly]

.

clean out and reapply thermal paste on the cpu...

.

[MajorMagee]

Did you clean out the power supply as well?

[rbp71854]

.

clean out and reapply thermal paste on the cpu...

.

Thanks, yup, that was on my list to do. Along with changes to bios to limit overclocking cpu overheating which is the error code I am getting.

[rbp71854]

Did you clean out the power supply as well?

Yes I did, and took mot of the fans out that were accessible and cleaned with baby wipes.

Dust in computers seems to have have mixture of body oils which makes it difficult to just use compressed air to remove.

[Shessi]

Totally agree with WormB, if you're still getting OH errors, then unless the liquid cooling pump has failed, or the cooling fluid is very old and lost it's thermal properties, then re-new the thermal paste.

(Apologies if this is 'teaching you to suck eggs'.....use old expired credit card, scrape off old paste, clean well with iso alcohol, and then re-apply pea-sized blob of something as good as Artic Silver thermal paste, no need to spread it about, as re-clamping cooler head (along with the CPU heat) will spread and continue to spread the paste out.)

Hopefully you've not heat stress damaged your CPU. I'm sure you haven't, and once you've done cleaning/paste and re-set back to stock timings, if it runs ok you can start to speed up the timings again!...

Cheers

Shessi

[rbp71854]

Totally agree with WormB, if you're still getting OH errors, then unless the liquid cooling pump has failed, or the cooling fluid is very old and lost it's thermal properties, then re-new the thermal paste.

(Apologies if this is 'teaching you to suck eggs'.....use old expired credit card, scrape off old paste, clean well with iso alcohol, and then re-apply pea-sized blob of something as good as Artic Silver thermal paste, no need to spread it about, as re-clamping cooler head (along with the CPU heat) will spread and continue to spread the paste out.)

Hopefully you've not heat stress damaged your CPU. I'm sure you haven't, and once you've done cleaning/paste and re-set back to stock timings, if it runs ok you can start to speed up the timings again!...

Cheers

Shessi

Thanks for the reminders. Its great having folks give me input on what to look for. Its been Its been nearly 3 decades since I walked away from the chip industry, tens yrs since my last computer build. I do have the situation of that old adage, "I have forgotten more than I still know."

Thanks again from you all.
Cheers

[Unicorngirl]

Invest in a Corsair or Coolmaster solid state liquid cooled fan/radiator. While you still need a little paste on the plate, it really reduces heat better then an air cooled system. I always stay on top of hardware updates because Im always running the most current game specs.

[rbp71854]

Invest in a Corsair or Coolmaster solid state liquid cooled fan/radiator. While you still need a little paste on the plate, it really reduces heat better then an air cooled system. I always stay on top of hardware updates because Im always running the most current game specs.

Yes I will probably replace the corsair liquid cpu cooler that I installed when I built the machine in 2011. Did a look on the internet and the lifespan for these units is between 2 and 6 yrs. So I probably have gotten my money's worth on the original unit.
Of course you know Intel and Microsoft want you to upgrade every 2 yrs.