PC problem

[munky]

I've been taking a look at my dad's PC, a Dell dimension 5000 which appears to freeze after it has been on a while.. looks like a case of overheating to me but with no obvious reason. When it did freeze up, I opened the case and the CPU heatsink was really quite hot, and yet the fan never speeds up. I tried downloading a few utilities that monitor CPU temp, but none of them can detect a CPU temperature sensor; then find the sensors on the hard drives but that's it. It's a pentium 4 HT processor, is it possible there's no temp sensor or that it's not working?
Anyway I did find a utility that allows one to force the fan to speed up, but as nothing can detect the CPU temp I can't get it working automatically. Any ideas as to what the cause of the problem is or a better way to rectify it? It's not blocked with dust or anything, it just seems that (apart from using this manual override) the fan just sits there idling no matter what load the CPU is under. thanks!

[MiniMac]

Fan def plugged into mobo? Swap fan? PSU not providing enough power. Locks up when PC is idle or under heavy load?

[munky]

MiniMac said:

Fan def plugged into mobo? Swap fan? PSU not providing enough power. Locks up when PC is idle or under heavy load?

Fan is definitely working, just seems to be very low rpm. It's spinning a lot faster now that I'm forcing it to - but of course now it's noisy all the time. Seems to lock up when it's under some load, e..g when running a spyware scan, rather than when it was completely idle.

[dilbert]

Get a new and bigger fan/heatsink.

Those P4's run hot anyhow. The fans they came with weren't up to much, the bearings wore out quickly. Bigger fans do more and are quieter.

[TheLearner]

Go in to the BIOS, if there is a temp monitor for the CPU it will be there.

If it's an old PC it could be any number of things. Could be gung in the sink, could be the thermal putty used to mate the CPU and HSF assembly has cooked off, could be the bearings on the fan going... thus its not moving the air.

Now, replace the whole HSF is the best bet, but you'd also need to clear off any gunge on the CPU before bolting the new one in.

Of course and this happened with several Athlon XP 1700+'s "creeping thermal death", no reason it couldn't happen to a P4. Basically, no matter how much air was moved over it or how big the bastard cooler was... the chip was just getting hotter and hotter. Yep, gunge changed and so on (inc. a new mobo)... before anyone posts a "lol n00b" response

[jimmyjimjim]

TheLearner said:

Go in to the BIOS, if there is a temp monitor for the CPU it will be there.

Wot he said.
To confirm it is heat related, try running the pc with the side of the case off and a desktop fan blowing in there. If that fixes it, t'is heat related. Not necessarily cpu though, could be the northbridge; check the fan on that is still running as well, and feel how hot it gets. If not very is the answer, go and buy one of these:

http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_info.php/cPa...

Job (probably) done. I'm assuming socket 478 from 'early pentium HT', better check before ordering.

[telecat]

What size is the PSU. I've found that "freeze's" and lock-ups can be done to an overloaded PSU. I uprated the PSU from 300W to 450W in my P4HT system and found that when I replaced a CD-RW with a DVD-RW I was getting problems which I thought were down to overheating. I upplugged the DVD-R that had been living happily with the CD-RW and instant reliability. The PSU requirements of the DVD-RW with the DVD-R just pushed the system over the edge.

Edited by telecat on Monday 12th November 06:57