Enjoying the silence...

[chewearn]

Just spend a few hours disassembling my PC. Vacuum dust from the case, heat sinks and fans. Reapply heat sink paste on the CPU.

CPU temp is now 5 degree C lower and fans are running 1 step down (about 500rpm slower). :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[madnessjack]

My old work computer used to keep my desk really warm, lol

[Dragonbite]

I'm tempted to run a line out to the barn and put the servers out there for some free cooling! ;) Makes it darn quiet (in the house) too!

[Simian Man]

My sister had a laptop that overheated so badly, she kept it in our chest freezer while playing games and ran the keybard, mouse and external monitor cables to the desk.

[angileon7]

Sisters laptop and you worried.. hoo.. i try to create trouble to my sis..!! lol :D

[chewearn]

First time I disassembled the PC since I bought it 3 years ago. It has been slowly falling apart since.

The mini-PCI WIFI card lock-up the PC early on, within a few days; I thought it was driver problem but I swear I could smell chip burning stink. I removed the card, but the stink remained for a few weeks, seemed to be coming from the PSU. But then, the PC chugged along fine, so I forgot about it.

The SD slot of the card reader is not working any more (probably rusted IO contacts).

Then, the onboard ethernet will knock down the entire PC if I transfer large amount of data, so I have to disable it and use a PCI ethernet card.

Recently, the PC would shutdown abruptly for no reason. Switching off the power, wait until the PSU discharge, turn it back on, and it booted fine. But a few days later, sometimes weeks later, it shutdown abruptly again.

I cleaned the PC about once every year, normally before upgrading to new release of Ubuntu. But normal vacuum can't reach inside the CPU heat sink.

This time, I took the risk and diassembled everything. There was an awful amount of dust in there. Hope I didn't killed anything in the process. Else, it should be good for another 3 years.

One of the perks of running Linux, don't have to upgrade to faster CPU every few years. :P