Hot spots in the PC

Hi everybody,

I opened my PC today to check for dust on the components.

All five fans worked properly and that fact is visible on the front panel measuring temperatures at four locations: CPU cooler, HDD(s), RAMs, chassis and chipset.

Measuring is done using a stand-alone "Fan Master" (Super Flower, Taiwan) which controls rpm of four fans individually based on the maximum temperature.

If temperature of one sensor has raised above the factory preset value the device will change the back light of the LCD to flashing red and set off an audible alarm. (Setting of the back light can be: red, green, blue and white)

Using three wire fans rpm is displayed on the LCD.

I could hardly believe what I saw on top of the PC case. It was a spider's web just on top between the power supply and the CD/DVD recorder.

That means that is a no-wind area, but not critical at all, since cooling of the power supply is done inside the enclosure and the CD/DVD recorder gets minor cooling underneath it by excessive air over the RAMs.

Boncuk

Nothing new there, air flow design in a PC case is one of the biggest overlooked system failure problems in the long term. Actual testing is almost never done, long term at least dust is always a problem and there is always enough ambient moisture to coagulate a 'nest'

Better than it was 10 years ago though when I could knit a sweater from the dust bunnies that formed inside my PC case and power supply.

I clean my machine out last week after 1 year and it wasn't too bad. The interior case design of this PC (A Dell XPS420) has always been one of the best I've ever seen.

No PC should ever go more than 1 year without a full cleaning, and machines older than 5 should have all components that use thermal compound disassembled and cleaned and fresh thermal compound applied.