Fans!
...So I wake up this morning to find my PC is off... Which's a little curious, but since there are other people around and a number of operations that might shut down Windows I didn't think about it all that much.
Then the comp shuts down 5 minutes or so after I turn it on, and then about 30seconds after I reboot it...
"Argh! It must be the heat" thinks I, for you see the first half hour or so of my waking day I am a pirate... Some scurvy dog has hidden my canned wind, so I head over to ye' ol' Target for some plundering. Avast, I find my booty, only to get CARDED to buy said canned air. A.)Don't these bitches recognize I'm a mutha-fuckin' mornin' time Pirate and B.)Who the shit is so dumb/desperate as to huff canned air... Canned air which has already has no psychoactive properties (except the ability to make the process of starving your brain of air just a little easier) and already has a bitterant in it... I only know this because last time I was using canned air I blew at the wrong angle and some came out liquid and splashed on my lips... Even dish soap and water couldn't disappate the nasty taste which lasted well into the next day whenever I would lick my lips...
Anyway... So I get back to my Super Secret, Secret Pirate Cove, clean my computer inside and out... And then see the "wiring fault" light on my power bar is lit... Damn scally wags and their inferior wired sockets... I find another socket which appears to be properly grounded, and try my PC again... I get about 5 minutes in and bang, power dies... At this point I'm starting to be convinced it's my power supply.
I decide to get down, check all the connections, and see if I can figure out WTF's going on, because I really don't wanna have to try and find a power supply, since my regular PC parts suppliers are A.)Bankrupt B.)The Internet or C.)In Sacramento...
I try powering it up one last time only to see my CPU fan having some kinda seizure... It's not even making full revolutions! Flicking it by hand gets it going for a few seconds before it returns to it's seizure...
Lucky for me, on top of being a pirate I'm kind of a pack rat, and I had another CPU fan & heatsink.... Thermal compound, while as expensive as gold, wasn't too hard to find. So a couple hours and a couple grease stains later things seem to be working okay.
I don't think I'd've posted except... How in the shit does a CPU fan die? It's a fan, you can't get more simple than an electric fan. I've been dealing with these things since before CPU fans were a neccesary component ("Wait... You mean this Pentium chip's gonna overheat eventually if I don't buy a fan for it?) and I have never had a CPU fan go out...
Also, for those who aren't quite as adept at getting down and dirty with their computers... I myself was suprised to find out that on my Award bios, the alarms for CPU fan speed, and CPU temp weren't activated by default...Something you might consider.
Then the comp shuts down 5 minutes or so after I turn it on, and then about 30seconds after I reboot it...
"Argh! It must be the heat" thinks I, for you see the first half hour or so of my waking day I am a pirate... Some scurvy dog has hidden my canned wind, so I head over to ye' ol' Target for some plundering. Avast, I find my booty, only to get CARDED to buy said canned air. A.)Don't these bitches recognize I'm a mutha-fuckin' mornin' time Pirate and B.)Who the shit is so dumb/desperate as to huff canned air... Canned air which has already has no psychoactive properties (except the ability to make the process of starving your brain of air just a little easier) and already has a bitterant in it... I only know this because last time I was using canned air I blew at the wrong angle and some came out liquid and splashed on my lips... Even dish soap and water couldn't disappate the nasty taste which lasted well into the next day whenever I would lick my lips...
Anyway... So I get back to my Super Secret, Secret Pirate Cove, clean my computer inside and out... And then see the "wiring fault" light on my power bar is lit... Damn scally wags and their inferior wired sockets... I find another socket which appears to be properly grounded, and try my PC again... I get about 5 minutes in and bang, power dies... At this point I'm starting to be convinced it's my power supply.
I decide to get down, check all the connections, and see if I can figure out WTF's going on, because I really don't wanna have to try and find a power supply, since my regular PC parts suppliers are A.)Bankrupt B.)The Internet or C.)In Sacramento...
I try powering it up one last time only to see my CPU fan having some kinda seizure... It's not even making full revolutions! Flicking it by hand gets it going for a few seconds before it returns to it's seizure...
Lucky for me, on top of being a pirate I'm kind of a pack rat, and I had another CPU fan & heatsink.... Thermal compound, while as expensive as gold, wasn't too hard to find. So a couple hours and a couple grease stains later things seem to be working okay.
I don't think I'd've posted except... How in the shit does a CPU fan die? It's a fan, you can't get more simple than an electric fan. I've been dealing with these things since before CPU fans were a neccesary component ("Wait... You mean this Pentium chip's gonna overheat eventually if I don't buy a fan for it?) and I have never had a CPU fan go out...
Also, for those who aren't quite as adept at getting down and dirty with their computers... I myself was suprised to find out that on my Award bios, the alarms for CPU fan speed, and CPU temp weren't activated by default...Something you might consider.