PC getting very hot

bomberman

bomberman

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I've just noticed that my pc is absolutely boiling hot to the touch and i can smell burning! any ideas? i would say that the outer casing its probably 60-70 degrees c to the touch... I've had the side panels off and theyre not blocked with dust or anything like that, any more ideas?
 
panic over - cooling fan wasn't turning. would i be right in thinking i can just buy a new one and replace it?
 
Check the fan on the cpu and also any fans connected to the case are working.

Some graphics card also have fans, so worth checking as well.

Finally your power supply will have a least one fan, possible more, but if this stops functioning, your power supply will soon burn out.
 
bomberman said:
panic over - cooling fan wasn't turning. would i be right in thinking i can just buy a new one and replace it?
Click to expand...

Too slow with my previous answer.

Yes, easy to buy. Ideally buy online, as the likes of pcworld will charge way over the odds. :thumbsdown:
 
See you answered your own question :)

Which cooling fan though? If it's a CPU one, in most cases yes. Just find out what size fan it is on your heatsink and buy an appropriate replacement. I recently replaced a 92mm fan on an ASUS CPU cooler at very little cost. Upgraded the fan a fair bit as well in the process.

If it's video card fans, again they can be replaced but are a little more tricky
 
it's the case fan. i like to put my feet on the unit and pull it back towards me to make a footrest. i think this is half the problem as it dosen't seem to like being on its side!
 
Should be OK on it's side, mostly units are designed to be cooled "front to back", so that the PSU and case fans are 'exhausting' air drawn in through the vents on the front. Often the inlets can be quite restrictive, so check any vent slots are free from dust and fluff build up. Also usually the front plastic can be removed, and the steel behind tends to have loads of small punched holes which also need cleaning out occasionally.

As already concluded having a running fan is a good start though :D

If you get a '3-pin' fan and connect it to a motherboard header (usually labelled 'system fan') you may find in the BIOS there is an alarm feature so that the system will beep if the fan starts running too slowely.

HTH
 
bomberman said:
panic over - cooling fan wasn't turning. would i be right in thinking i can just buy a new one and replace it?
Click to expand...

bomberman said:
it's the case fan.
Click to expand...

Do you have a PC shop near you - Not something like PCWorld, but a small corner shop, they can be extreemly helpfull and often for something like this, the diff in price is negligable - and they are normally (I know the couple I've deat with are) very happy to help if required.

Glad you found the problem :thumbs:
 
I bought an "extra" case cooling fan from PCW £10

works well
 
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