PC possibly overheating

muffler

Looking for a bit of help here. First up my knowledge of PCs/technical stuff is limited so go easy on me.

I have a Dell XPS 430 desktop and I have noticed that there is a bit of heat coming from it in the last few days. Is there anything installed in the system that would tell me if everything is working fine or is there anything I can download to determine if the system is in fact overheating?

Thanks in advance.

Torqay

HWMonitor will report the temperatures from all sensors in your computer. It's free and you have the choice between the installer or the portable version.

Feel free to post a screenshot with the readings here.

A computer can gather a lot of dust in 3 years. Get a can of compressed air (any computer store should have them in stock), open the case and blow out the dust and fluff (don't forget the power supply).

Procrastastudy

Torqay wrote: »

A computer can gather a lot of dust in 3 years. Get a can of compressed air (any computer store should have them in stock), open the case and blow out the dust and fluff (don't forget the power supply).

If you're a smoker, or even if you're not tbh, over three years the thing will likely be positively disgusting inside!

muffler

Torqay wrote: »

HWMonitor will report the temperatures from all sensors in your computer.

Went to that page and it give another link to download but I then got a "not found" page

muffler

Just after my first post a downloaded a little gadget and ran it. I shut the PC down for half an hour and ran it again and this is what I got




Before I shut down the GPU reading was 68....I take it thats too high.

Im going to shut down again and do a little cleaning

Procrastastudy

68 at idle for a 4800 series is a little high but not by much if you have multiple displays plugged in.

Torqay

muffler wrote: »

Went to that page and it give another link to download but I then got a "not found" page

Dunno where you clicked, but these are the 3 download links...



and they all work perfectly well for me.

Torqay

Procrastastudy wrote: »

68 at idle for a 4800 series is a little high but not by much if you have multiple displays plugged in.

And so is the CPU temp, unless it is quite busy. though neither value is overly concerning and well within the thermal specifications. Probably just some dust... did you open the case and look inside?

Procrastastudy

Torqay wrote: »

And so is the CPU temp, unless it is quite busy. though neither value is overly concerning and well within the thermal specifications. Probably just some dust... did you open the case and look inside?

Please post (unedited!) pics

Torqay

Procrastastudy wrote: »

Please post (unedited!) pics

A couple of weeks ago I had a PC here which was sitting in a quarry office for the last 6 years... That day I really wished for some ABC protective gear when I put it out to the compressor.

muffler

Torqay wrote: »

Dunno where you clicked, but these are the 3 download links...

Apologies, I scrolled further down the page and clicked on a link

Anyhow I got my son to take the side of the PC and clean whatever dirt (and there was quite a bit) he could see. Up and going for about 20 mins now and I got the HWmonitor installed and took the following screen grab.

Procrastastudy

How many displays are plugged into that machine?

muffler

Procrastastudy wrote: »

How many displays are plugged into that machine?

Monitors?.....just the one.

Procrastastudy

If you've no TV or anything else hooked up 60C is high. My old 4870 had a habbit of running hot before it went to silicon heaven.

Make sure the heat sink is free of dirt (easier said than done) - It should be idling at around 40-50C max.

Torqay

As I said, organize a can of compressed air and clear all the fans.

(don't use the hoover, it can generate static!)

Torqay

Procrastastudy wrote: »

Make sure the heat sink is free of dirt (easier said than done) - It should be idling at around 40-50C max.

I'm using a passive HD 4350 here, temp is around 52C (w. 2 1920x1200 monitors)

muffler

Procrastastudy wrote: »

If you've no TV or anything else hooked up 60C is high. My old 4870 had a habbit of running hot before it went to silicon heaven.

Make sure the heat sink is free of dirt (easier said than done) - It should be idling at around 40-50C max.

Yeah, just a single 19" monitor hooked up. Haven't a clue what the "heat sink" is but I'll get someone who knows what they're doing to have a look at it at the beginning of the week.

I know there was at least 3 fans inside the machine which were in various components (power supply etc) and while my son got the dirt and dust removed from the outer casings/grills he didnt remove any of these "components as like myself he wouldnt be familiar with the bits and bobs.

I can still feel the heat coming out from under the desk so its definitely not right.

Thanks to everyone for their help.

Torqay

Heat sink...

Procrastastudy

Sorry the heat sink is just a fancy name for the metal fins on the GPU - I don't know which 4800 series it is so maybe it doesn't have a fan and 60C is normal. Doesn't look like anything to panic about tbh - maybe just needs a good clean.

Make sure you run a anti-virus scan just incase its some piece of malware in the background doing something.

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Brand name Lazer.

muffler

muffler wrote: »

I was looking at this little widget a while ago while the GPU temp. was hovering around 60c. Down near the middle there's an option to increase the fan speed so I went up to about 60% and you could hear the fan running and the air around the machine being a little cooler.

The gpu temp continued to drop steadily and finally steadied out around 45c after less than a minute. I changed the fan setting down to 40 and the gpu temp held around 46-47c. I dropped the fan speed again to 20 and the temp then went up again but held around 53-54c

I know nothing at all about these things but Im wondering should I set the fan speed to maybe around 20 - 30 or will that just put extra pressure on the fan and wear it out?

I will get some compressed air in a couple of days and give everything a good blast but if there's no improvement I'll have to take it to a shop maybe. I assume Im right in thinking that the gpu temp is a bit on the high side at 60c+

Below is a screen grab with the fan set at 40 which brought the gpu temp down from around 60c to around 46/47c

Procrastastudy

To be honest its not that much of an issue it being at the temp it is. No one has been doing any over clocking have they? It's perfectly normal for the 4800 series to hit 80C in games but usually when you are back in windows it goes into a low power mode and will sit around 40-50C. If someone has installed something like MSI afterburner it may stop the card doing that.