my air conditioner went out last night, and the interior house temp before the repairman got here went to 88F.... at about 85F the computer shut down... not a big thing for me, but I know a lot of you have stored emergency information.... just throwing this out in case you have not considered the ramifications....

That's really interesting; I'd like to know something more about the computer--laptop? desktop? Old? New? etc.

We are pretty dependent on our computers, and I try to cover as many bases as I can to avoid problems. For example, an IT tech friend told me (years ago) to make sure the inside and vents on the desktop unit are clean and free of dust to help keep them cool. It is something I check on. Right now, I am working on it in an 80 degree F. room, and no problems.

I am always concerned about how hot the Laptop gets after running for a while.

Any input/advice on these issues would be appreciated.

bws48... HP Pavilion desk top tower (box store special)about 3 years old... I unsuccessfully attempted several times to restart.... as soon as the AC dropped the temp below 85F it restarted without a problem... it has never been cleaned, but there is air flow out of the fan

I used Apples at school (IIe to Graphite Macs), and none were fan cooled (IIRC) but never temp that high either...

Les, even if the fan is moving air, the heat sink on the chip may be clogged with dust, impairing its' ability to radiate heat. Not unlike your refrigerator coils getting dirty.

If you want to dust the insides, pull the power cord after shutting down the PC. Sometimes there is a constant power pull and using canned air can short the motherboard.

Takes maybe five minutes to clean the insides.

Heat sinks, power supply(ies), fans, air vents, all must be cleaned. You will likely find that your computer will run at much higher indoor air temps when this is done.

One of my customers used to take computers into the repair bay to blow out the dust with air from the shop compressor. Don't do that. Shop compressor air may have water, oil and other contaminants in it that won't hurt the impact wrench but does bad, bad things to your computer. They didn't believe me and ended up learning this lesson the expensive way.

Use a paperclip or some other object to carefully prevent fans from spinning on a shut-down and unplugged computer when the air might spin them. Some fan bearings will break if you spin the fan the wrong way too fast or too long.



Without a doubt unplugging it (and removing the battery, if it's a laptop) is good advice before opening it, every single time. I used to have the kids that worked for me put the power plug in their pocket to keep end-users from plugging stuff back in while they were working on them. However, I've never heard of canned air by itself causing problems.

Declock the Computer. Change the Front Sided Bus Speed and or the CPU clock multiplier in the BIOS.

Not only will your PC actually boot properly in high temperatures you will save money on your electricity bill.

If your computer is generating heat i.e. 150W to be reduced to 70W then have your aircon remove that heat will save some cash.

You probably wouldn't notice any speed difference with your PC unless using heavy power hungry applications such as video editing.

Search for a program such as conky for your OS that will let you read the temperature of the various sensors on the board.

Dust acts as a thermal insulator. It's a heat blanket. Very bad.

Dust is also a mild conductor. A blanket of dust can cause cross-talk and other noise.

85F sure seems like a low temperature for the system to go into thermal shutdown. Is the CPU fan turning when power is turned on? Are there any motionless fans in the system?

I've heard of one case where a faulty sensor caused the CPU fan speed to be reported as 0 to firmware, and the system (unnecessarily) shut down to protect the CPU. That should be rare in a factory-built system.

James, and all... thanks, yes the side vents were dusty... if it happens again will look inside... was not able to clearly see if the CPU fan was operating/dirty...

I grew up with the small block Chevrolet technology, not the PC technology...used Apples and Macs at school and had IT support... but as I commented, just passing along an incident that may have been purely coincidental... but probably unlikely

Download and install Speedfan to monitor your computer's temps. The interface is complex and hard to understand, but generally you don't need it. Speedfan will display the temp in your taskbar. For Windows only.