Can you help me find out what happened to my PCmod?

[dnns123]

I gave a friend $4 to lower my PC temperature by 3-4 degrees celcius. He doesnt want to tell me how because its a secret. Now, im trying to figure out what he did.
I tried checking out my specs and didnt find anything tampered.
Clockrate is still the same.
My bios is untouched, I think.
I dont see anything new inside my PC.

I dont think its a software mod because he doesnt know how to use Linux.

any ideas? or programs?

[jobsonandrew]

You can get 'software cooling' applications... i couldnt name any but i remember trying one.. it was crap, but that was a while ago.. stuff like AMD 'Cool-n-Quiet' might lower your temperature in theory..

but, in theory, communism works... in theory

[fatality_uk]

Maybe "the fastest gun in the west" rountine :D

Unless you actually took detailed reading of high, low, median, temps and charted that over a period of time and then in specific circumstances, i.e. applying a filter in Gimp for instance, then how do you know if he has "done" to your PC is anything?

You would need detailed reading before and after to ensure that you can compare!

[bufsabre666]

im betting he cleaned the fans or just put some artic silver under the heat sync

[jobsonandrew]

resitting the heatsink can make a massive difference.. i brought a gfx card back from the dead by resitting its heatsink..

either that or he turned the radiator down in the room when you werent looking lol... atmospheric temperature can have a huge impact for obvious reasons

[dnns123]

I took readings during idle time and compared it to the current one.
It is lower.
My room is air-conditioned is my pc was running at 28 degrees. I tested it in an electric fan cooled room. its in beween 24-25 degrees.
He obviously made a difference.

I should check on the thermal paste, because my fans are as dusty as ever,

He did say it it was a costly tweak, because he needed 5 customers for him to do it. It may just be artic silver.

What is "resitting the heatsink"?

[bufsabre666]

What is "resitting the heatsink"?

its just taking up the heat sync and resets the heat sync on the cpu again

[jobsonandrew]

because my fans are as dusty as ever
because of this im guessing its an oldish machine? If it is, then this suggests to me that resitting the heatsink could have made such a difference.. What I mean by resitting is removing the heatsink, cleaning off old thermal paste, reapplying new thermal paste, and fitting the heatsink again.
This makes a difference because, over time, thermal paste becomes corroded and near useless.. the gfx card i mentioned is a great example.. it was causing blue screens and graphical glitches all over the place, i found that it was overheating, so i removed the heatsink, cleaned it, reapplied some decent quality paste and refitted the heatsink, and hey presto! it was running like new.. amazing really...

[dnns123]

Dusty as ever implies that it was not cleaned. Its quite a new machine. just 4 months old

[timpino]

he could also have undervolted it through the bios, most machines can infact be undervolted (fed a lower volt than specified) thus cooling it.

[dnns123]

As said above, I checked the BIOS.
Im a casual overclocker and I dont see any tampering in the voltage or clockrate.