Dead PC, CPU fan going nuts.
Hello all thanks ahead of time for even looking at my issue.
My PC was acting up a few weeks ago, and it began to shut down, usually while under full load [playing sc2 or bf4 while playing full screen 1920 video out to a projector] I would then turn it back on and the CPU fan would spin very very fast and loud and then go back to normal, the problem persisted and this time it was not under full loads, I got a blue screen and the issue after I googled it mentioned it was specific to SSDs, I had a 120 on my desk, so I thought maybe pop that in, put windows 7 on it and see if is an HD issue. I also thought it might be a temperature issue so I cleaned the old thermal paste, all of the machine, the gpu fan.
I then put it only 1 HD the start up one, and though I was able to install windows on it no problem, as soon as I started installing CC it would begin crashing again, same fan issue, and then it'd get stuck in power up/down loops, fan issues again.
The machine is from 2011 it works just fine for gaming and basic motion graphics work, I would like to repair it but don't know which process of elimination to use, as replacing the broken component would give me a working machine again. I am buying these components this week http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3bcDo but the only part there I can really test to eliminate whats wrong is the PSU as is a different chipset.
Is there anything I can do in the way of testing to figure out what is wrong with the broken machine?
Thanks again
Posted Mar 17, 2014, 7:10 PM UTC
Can you run a check on themperatures? Something like CoreTemp, HWiNFO, HWMonitor64 will do. Temperatures are important under load of course, not when the machine is idling.
Shutting down during load, the fan getting very loud if you restart instantly and then slowing down when just in normal desktop usage sounds very much like an overheating issue.
I tried that, and the temperatures were fine. I even tested my temperature theory by opening both my windows while it was 20 degrees outside until my room was too cold to be in, temps would be low across the board and then the machine would shut down and do its fan start up business.
How high were the temperatures exactly (Intel/AMD is also relevant)? Also, testing this by simply lowering the ambient temperature by a few degrees is not really viable - if the fins of the heatsink are full of dust, you could probably stick the thing in a freezer and it would still overheat.
Will try and see if i can get it to turn back on and check the temperatures. I also did the whole fan cleaning bit, took the whole thing off and used like a whole of dustoff after doing it by hand for the bigger pieces