To put it as bluntly as possible my cpu's fan goes to 7k+ rpm and then jumps to 0 for a sec or two and goes back and forth that way for a minute or so then returns to normal.
Now in detail. I've had this computer for around 6-7 years now and it never ever had any issues with overheating. Even during hot summer days with quite a lot of load on it it never showed any signs of heat problems.
All right, so what kind of PC are we talking about here?
Motherboard: MSI P965 Neo
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66GHz
GPU: Asus Radeon HD 7750 1Gb
PSU: Powerline 450W
RAM: 3.25Gb (The 32bit system maximum. It actually has 4Gigs installed)
Storage: HDD 200Gb 7200RPM
CPU fan: Intel stock that probably came with the E6300 1.86GHz that was in there at first (bought a pre-built PC).
OS: Windows 8.1
So, everything was running completely flawlessly until yesterday, the 1st of May, when my pc got a windows update. I was playing WoW and while playing a battleground, which would stress the PC a little bit, I noticed lag spikes. Periodic lag spikes that would last for a second and would happen every 5 to 10 seconds. After I left the battleground and was just sitting around, which barely puts any stress on the PC, my motherboard started beeping. If I were to transform the sound into a Morse code kind of text it would look like this: _--_--. that sequence repeats itself a couple of times then stops. Naturally, I freaked out and turned WoW off and investigated what the flying duck just happened. Apparently that is the motherboard's way of saying that my CPU fan's speed is 0 rpm. Although, I haven't seen the inside of my PC when it happened to confirm that my fan isn't spinning, I could hear it spinning. I turned HW Monitor to start collecting some data if it occurs again. And it did, again while in WoW, only this time at the start of a battleground with 20 people on the screen. It seems that while it happens the CPU fan is jumping around it goes to 7k+ then 0 then 7k+ when it's normal speed is around 1k+ (nearing to 2k if stressed enough, though never seen it go above 1750~). I did not take a screenshot while it was happening but I did when it stabilized.
Here's the result:
Now, other than the CPU Fan speed I took note of the CPU's temperature. according to this my CPU's critical temp. is actually 60,1C. This says that it went up to 63,5C... Not only that, but it hangs on about 46 - 51C on idle when the recommended temp is like 40C... That's also disturbing... What happens next, however, blows my mind.
After doing some Googling here and there I found out about S.M.A.R.T., a fan speed controlling piece of bios, and a phenomenal program called SpeedFan. After I installed the program, I also got out my Core Center software that comes with my Mobo. On top of that, I turned task manager on to look at the cpu performance. With all of those things on, I observed SpeedFan's S.M.A.R.T. tab which shows a graph of my cpu fan. And it happens again! The mobo started beeping, no WoW on, only the programs I described above. The Core Center started playing it's alarm sounds that my cpu fan's rpm is 0 (and it's showing as 0). HW Monitor is showing that the rpm is jumping yet again to 0, to 7k+ and back to 0. The SpeedFan's graph is also showing similar things, though it updates less frequently than HW Monitor. It shows that the rpm is either at the bottom (0) or at the top (7k+ or so). The task manager is showing that my cpu is barely doing anything. Max 30% utilisation, no big 70-100% spikes, no nothing. While this madness is going on I took my time to look at the HW Monitor's CPU temperature. The mobo is beeping out of control, the core center has already been shut down due to being a nuisance, and the cpu temp is sitting calmly on 46-51C gap... I kept watching for a minute then turned SpeedFan off. As the beeping started with it monitoring s.m.a.r.t. it ended a few seconds after I had turned the program off.
How come one week I can play WoW normally with putting more stress on the PC as I did today and yesterday and this week I can not? My room temperature is 25C and the weather this week is even cooler than the one before.
Oh and, by the way, I did shut down my pc completely and opened it up to see what's going on inside. Everything is a little dusty as you'd expect it to be but nothing major. What little dust there were - I removed. I even took my cpu fan off to check if everything is okay with it and cleaned it a bit, made sure that there are no dirt clogs in between the metals that transfer the heat (heatsinks, I believe?). Changed the thermal paste, put it back on and the problem still persists. (I did the opening and the cleaning before all the "SpeedFan-no-WoW and the battleground-with-20-people-on-screen, incidents")
What on earth is going on... Please, enlighten me!
Update: I opened up my pc, turned it on and launched SpeedFan (to make the Mobo beep). Indeed the hw monitor, the core center and SpeedFan show false results. All of my fans were spinning perfectly fine even though it was beeping and my cpu wasn't too hot (although it's still hotter than I would like it to be on idle).
Update 2: After realizing that the cpu fan is spinning even when the mobo is beeping, I went in to do some WoW, up into a battleground with 20 people on screen. After a min or two it started beeping. I windowed WoW to check what's going on and everything is as usual with 0 - 7k rpms and after a while it just stopped beeping and everything was stable... I played through the whole battleground (30 mins or so) and everything was stable the whole time.
Now in detail. I've had this computer for around 6-7 years now and it never ever had any issues with overheating. Even during hot summer days with quite a lot of load on it it never showed any signs of heat problems.
All right, so what kind of PC are we talking about here?
Motherboard: MSI P965 Neo
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66GHz
GPU: Asus Radeon HD 7750 1Gb
PSU: Powerline 450W
RAM: 3.25Gb (The 32bit system maximum. It actually has 4Gigs installed)
Storage: HDD 200Gb 7200RPM
CPU fan: Intel stock that probably came with the E6300 1.86GHz that was in there at first (bought a pre-built PC).
OS: Windows 8.1
So, everything was running completely flawlessly until yesterday, the 1st of May, when my pc got a windows update. I was playing WoW and while playing a battleground, which would stress the PC a little bit, I noticed lag spikes. Periodic lag spikes that would last for a second and would happen every 5 to 10 seconds. After I left the battleground and was just sitting around, which barely puts any stress on the PC, my motherboard started beeping. If I were to transform the sound into a Morse code kind of text it would look like this: _--_--. that sequence repeats itself a couple of times then stops. Naturally, I freaked out and turned WoW off and investigated what the flying duck just happened. Apparently that is the motherboard's way of saying that my CPU fan's speed is 0 rpm. Although, I haven't seen the inside of my PC when it happened to confirm that my fan isn't spinning, I could hear it spinning. I turned HW Monitor to start collecting some data if it occurs again. And it did, again while in WoW, only this time at the start of a battleground with 20 people on the screen. It seems that while it happens the CPU fan is jumping around it goes to 7k+ then 0 then 7k+ when it's normal speed is around 1k+ (nearing to 2k if stressed enough, though never seen it go above 1750~). I did not take a screenshot while it was happening but I did when it stabilized.
Here's the result:
Now, other than the CPU Fan speed I took note of the CPU's temperature. according to this my CPU's critical temp. is actually 60,1C. This says that it went up to 63,5C... Not only that, but it hangs on about 46 - 51C on idle when the recommended temp is like 40C... That's also disturbing... What happens next, however, blows my mind.
After doing some Googling here and there I found out about S.M.A.R.T., a fan speed controlling piece of bios, and a phenomenal program called SpeedFan. After I installed the program, I also got out my Core Center software that comes with my Mobo. On top of that, I turned task manager on to look at the cpu performance. With all of those things on, I observed SpeedFan's S.M.A.R.T. tab which shows a graph of my cpu fan. And it happens again! The mobo started beeping, no WoW on, only the programs I described above. The Core Center started playing it's alarm sounds that my cpu fan's rpm is 0 (and it's showing as 0). HW Monitor is showing that the rpm is jumping yet again to 0, to 7k+ and back to 0. The SpeedFan's graph is also showing similar things, though it updates less frequently than HW Monitor. It shows that the rpm is either at the bottom (0) or at the top (7k+ or so). The task manager is showing that my cpu is barely doing anything. Max 30% utilisation, no big 70-100% spikes, no nothing. While this madness is going on I took my time to look at the HW Monitor's CPU temperature. The mobo is beeping out of control, the core center has already been shut down due to being a nuisance, and the cpu temp is sitting calmly on 46-51C gap... I kept watching for a minute then turned SpeedFan off. As the beeping started with it monitoring s.m.a.r.t. it ended a few seconds after I had turned the program off.
How come one week I can play WoW normally with putting more stress on the PC as I did today and yesterday and this week I can not? My room temperature is 25C and the weather this week is even cooler than the one before.
Oh and, by the way, I did shut down my pc completely and opened it up to see what's going on inside. Everything is a little dusty as you'd expect it to be but nothing major. What little dust there were - I removed. I even took my cpu fan off to check if everything is okay with it and cleaned it a bit, made sure that there are no dirt clogs in between the metals that transfer the heat (heatsinks, I believe?). Changed the thermal paste, put it back on and the problem still persists. (I did the opening and the cleaning before all the "SpeedFan-no-WoW and the battleground-with-20-people-on-screen, incidents")
What on earth is going on... Please, enlighten me!
Update: I opened up my pc, turned it on and launched SpeedFan (to make the Mobo beep). Indeed the hw monitor, the core center and SpeedFan show false results. All of my fans were spinning perfectly fine even though it was beeping and my cpu wasn't too hot (although it's still hotter than I would like it to be on idle).
Update 2: After realizing that the cpu fan is spinning even when the mobo is beeping, I went in to do some WoW, up into a battleground with 20 people on screen. After a min or two it started beeping. I windowed WoW to check what's going on and everything is as usual with 0 - 7k rpms and after a while it just stopped beeping and everything was stable... I played through the whole battleground (30 mins or so) and everything was stable the whole time.