So my computer has been crashing on me when I'm playing any CPU intense video game. I think I've narrowed it down to overheating because if I try to start up the computer again right after it crashes it's super slow and it will usually crash again soon after. But if I let it sit for awhile after it crashes then start it up later it's like nothing happened. Plus sometimes I can feel the heat radiating from the tower.
Is there an easy fix to this that doesn't involve buying a new case with water cooling and the works? I've attached a screen shot of this program that reads the temperature sensors in the pc.
Get better fans/make sure the fans you have are working and have decent flow through your case. Make sure you have close to an equal number of fans blowing into the case as you do blowing out of the case. They make exhaust fans as well that seem to do okay.
Try opening the case of your computer and putting a box fan beside it.
Before you do that try cleaning out any dust in your tower with a bit of condensed air - it can act as an insulator, which is the opposite of what you want.
You don't win the Game of Death by dying first. The name is misleading.
Yeah, dust is the #1 problem. If it doesn't flat out clog your fans to a halt it'll insulate things and cause overheating.
A discussion of fan arrangement would be interesting. I noticed on a case I bought for my parents, every fan was arranged to blow out. Intake was through vents. I normally do the "half in, half out" thing to try and setup a better flow but it occurs to me that having them all blow out probably works well too. Depends on case design, I guess.
Ok good advice guys. It turns out when I replaced my power source I plugged the rear fan into the wrong wire. After a couple more tries I finally found a plug that actually gave it some power. Also there was a bunch of dust in there that I cleaned out. As a result I was actually able to game for a couple of hours with no crashing! It usually crashes within about 30 minutes. But then just when I thought I was in the clear it crashed
I'm hoping another fan will do the trick, but I've never shopped for additional case fans before. How do you know where to place them? I noticed on the side of my case there are some ventilation holes, do I just attach it next to those somehow?
Usually you can't really add fans to a case unless it has a spot already for it, or unless you are crafty and want to start cutting. Looks like your case only has room for 2 fans, one up front(which is a little hard to get to) and one in the back. If the one in the back wasn't working at all before, and now it is, that should drastically help. The holes in the side look just for ventilation, not sure those holes are enough to allow a fan to get real air flow through it, and you'd have to drill holes and all that.
You don't really have room to add more fans unless you want to cut a hole in your case door, which I'm guessing you don't want to do.
Link - maybe think about an exhaust fan, like at the link.
it's possible that your hardware is now permanently damaged as a result of previous overheating. but the damage may only result in a reduced tolerance for high temperatures, which you can work around by making sure that your PC stays extra-cool from now on.
from the picture of your case, it looks like your front fan should blow air into the case. make sure that it's doing so. normally all rear fans should blow air out of the case (this includes the fan in your power supply).
your CPU fan should either blow air directly towards the CPU from the left (door) side of the case toward the right (motherboard) side when viewed from the front (in which case it will suck air in through the plastic port on the side panel), or it should blow air across the CPU heatsink fins from the front of the case toward the back (in which case the plastic port doesn't do all that much).
the lower vent on the side panel is positioned to allow extra cool air to flow onto your graphics card, if the front fan isn't able to supply enough airflow. if the front fan isn't doing enough, you can install another input fan in some of your drive bays. I'm using a SilverStone CFP51 in my Antec P160 case purely for additional airflow over what the chassis-mounted front fan can provide. I have no drives mounted in the CFP51 at all (btw, the one I have is the brushed aluminum -S model rather than the easier-to-find black -B model to match the rest of the case.
Cool thanks for all the good advice! The CFP51 is a bit pricey though, do you think this would be an adequate substitute? I was also going to grab one of those pci fans.
the one you linked would work, but it looks like it uses 3 small fans instead of 1 large fan, which means it will probably be a lot louder. the reviews confirm that noise is a problem with that model.
since pc cooling is all about the volume of air you can move, rather than the speed you move it, you can get a very quiet machine by having very large fans that turn relatively slowly. a small high-speed fan will sound like a jet engine or a hair dryer, while a large low-speed fan will be virtually silent.
in any event, if you're ok with the noise the one you linked looks ok. but you only need it if your existing front fan is unable to supply enough airflow to keep the interior of your pc cool.
