Blocked block

Sonic Boom · 30 Mar 2007 at 15:13

I know I have only been on here a day so very sorry for all the questions.

My wifes 18 month old pc one afternoon just locked up while she was online, after and 20 mins of trying to turn it off via the power switch and keyboard we had to switch it off at the power supply.

since then it's never fired up again. I opened the side up and when you switch the machine on the processor fan runs , but very very slow, every 5 seconds the fan then goes up to full speed for a few seconds then back to slow.(burges)

I remover the main block that sites on the P4 and it was 85% blocked of dust.
This is what I think has happened but can't go out to buy new stuff until I know for sure. I think maybe the pen 4 because the block was blocked got to hot and has burt out....Would you tend to agree?

hardc0re_tid · 30 Mar 2007 at 15:40

i can understand everything else but the last paragraph, care to explain?

are you talking about a water block, or a large lump of metal with fins aka a heatsink

VoG · 30 Mar 2007 at 15:52

i suppose you could've fried the cpu cos the heatsink was full of dust but ide be surprised if you actually had if all your wife was doing at the time was surfing the net.

ide give the heatsink & fan a good clean & do the same for the case fans & probably the psu as well if you know what your doing, if not get some one who does know what there upto to sort it. ide take a look at the general state of the inside of the case as well. it's probably choked up & could do wih a good sort out whilst your about it.

Chris Beard · 30 Mar 2007 at 15:55

Don't remove the heatsink unless you have some thermal paste or pads to stick between the sink and processor when you mount it again.

Did you turn the power supply back on?

Sonic Boom · 30 Mar 2007 at 15:58

hardc0re_tid said:
i can understand everything else but the last paragraph, care to explain?

are you talking about a water block, or a large lump of metal with fins aka a heatsink

Sorry yes I mean the heat sink, still getting used to all the names of the parts.

Thanks all for your advice.

MikeTimbers · 31 Mar 2007 at 12:27

You can buy cans of compressed air which would blast all that dust out of the heatsink. Then try using the computer again.

WJA96 · 31 Mar 2007 at 16:38

You can't burn-out a P4. What could happen is that it could heat up so much it shuts back down again. It's a built-in protection mechanism.

What kind of system is this?

Mikebert4 · 1 Apr 2007 at 11:24

*nods @ WJA96*

you can't fry a P4 without meaning to. Maybe the Power supply is frying because of the same reason (build up of dust)

Get someone to look at it, and not the *competitor!* gorillas, because chances are youc an salvage most if not all of the system. I'd recomend a friend or a small one-man-operation computer shop, I've not had issues with that kind of smaller operation.

Mainly, good luck!