Hello friends,

1) I have an year old Intel P4 915GAV, 1 GB RAM,80 GB HDD etc and i don't know anything about hardware. A week ago, my PC did shut down automatically and after 30 minutes, when i restarted, it said that the previous shut down was due to thermal event (overheating). Then i installed the Intel Desktop utilities and found out the temperature was 83C.When i started working, gradually the temperature was increasing and shut down automatically when it reached 100C and above. One of my friends removed the cabinet, cleaned the fan and told me the fan above the processor was not fitting to the mother board properly. He pressed the screws,which were in the fan and noted down the temperature and it was 47C. Then he applied the heat sink paste and fixed the fan again and the temperature was 57C.

I don't play games but i use this PC for my research work,watch movies, surf and download all day and night.

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Is this problem caused coz of the heat sink not fitting well ? or some other problems with the mother board ?

2) When i tried to connect a 250GB Seagate HDD (4 months old,still under warranty) which i used to save my work data,the PC was not at all booting but was working with the 80GB HDD well with the temperature between 57C - 63C. I took that 250 GB HDD to the shop, from where i purchased.When the tech. guy tried to test the HDD, it started smoking(capacitor burnt).He asked me to recover the data first and give that to Seagate for a replacement. Then i went to a Data Recovery Center,gave the HDD and paid.The DRC guy called me up and told me that HDD has been fixed also along with the data and i could use the same HDD again.

Can anyone tell me whether i make use of the 250 HDD again? Would that create any other problems in the future ?

Thanks much in advance and for your time also.

Regards,
madhu.

A few steps to consider:

- You need better airflow, there's no way your temps will be that high without a serious problem with the air flowing over key components in your case

- You need to remove your HSF & CPU, clean the thermal paste off both, then re-apply the paste again. Perhaps try investing in some premium paste like Arctic Silver 5 also.

- My main concern is with your PSU. While desktop utilities is reporting good values on the 12v, I'd venture the theory that maybe that's untrue - extra voltage on the 12v would be pumped right into the hard drives and would likely start blowing up caps and producing that extra heat.

- Hard drives should never be run at temperatures of 50-60 degrees. If you do nothing about the CPU or the PSU, you need at the very least to cool those drives down alot. Especially seeing as you're running the system 24/7 - this would undoubtedly cause damage and severely decrease the lives of the drives.

My PC is on 24/7 and has 5 hard drives running all the time with temperatures between 16 and 25 degrees. If you're going to be running 24/7 then you need to be investing in fans and other extra cooling. Even the drive in my PowerBook doesn't exceed 45 degrees.

I'd replace the PSU before putting the 250gb drive back in.

Hi MesaRectifier,

Thanks for the reply.

- You need better airflow, there's no way your temps will be that high without a serious problem with the air flowing over key components in your case

My PC has been kept opened, since i noticed this problem

- You need to remove your HSF & CPU, clean the thermal paste off both, then re-apply the paste again. Perhaps try investing in some premium paste like Arctic Silver 5 also.

I will do that again and try with Arctic Silver 5 also if that is available in Bangalore,India.

- My main concern is with your PSU. While desktop utilities is reporting good values on the 12v, I'd venture the theory that maybe that's untrue - extra voltage on the 12v would be pumped right into the hard drives and would likely start blowing up caps and producing that extra heat.

Did mean SMPS by saying PSU ? If so, the day before yesterday, i got a new PSU or SMPS and replaced the old one

- Hard drives should never be run at temperatures of 50-60 degrees. If you do nothing about the CPU or the PSU, you need at the very least to cool those drives down alot. Especially seeing as you're running the system 24/7 - this would undoubtedly cause damage and severely decrease the lives of the drives.

Yes, my PC has been running almost 24/7. I am planning to get Zalman or Thermaltake from the US..Can you suggest anything better than these?

_________________________________________
And one more incident happened today, I went to the DRC and got my 250 GB HDD back with all my data.He made me to pay by saying to repair the HDD, more than that what he said earlier, just by replacing the capacitors.He asked me to get the CPU from my place, then i took there and he fixed the 250 GB HDD along with the 80 GB HDD, both were working fine but i dont know for how long When i called up my friend at Dell, told him abt all the happenings, he yelled at me for spending so much for recovering the data.So,please friends, when you are going for data recovery, just collect some info. regarding that and dont spend too much like me.

(If anyone in Bangalore reads this and planning to recover the data, then i am ready to disclose their details, mail me @ madhu.sudhanan@yahoo.com).
__________________________________________

Thanks much.

Regards,
Madhu.

This is not always a good option. Many components need air to *flow* over them in order for them to be cooled properly. A standard closed PC case is designed to blow air out the top back (power supply and additional exhaust fan beneath it), thus sucking in fresh (cool) air through the front bottom of the case. This air moves back and up through the case, gently flowing over the components. With the case open, there is no airflow from bottom front to top back.

Hi Mondoman,

Thanks for the explanation and the advice.

Does anyone think my motherboard has some serious problems?
Please, let me know.

Regards,
Madhu.

Hello Mondoman & other tech. gurus,

Please dont laugh @ me, for asking this question(if you guys find it silly), ...In India, the summer has already started and for the next 3-4 months, the whole country will be burning.

If i keep my PC open and if i have a room air cooler like this,

http://www.bajajelectricals.com/sh [...] 0&show=all

by keeping that not in front of the PC's components, but at an angle of 45 degrees,from a distance of 2 feet....would it be helpful for me to control the increase in temperature?

Thanks much.

Regards,
madhu.

If you are going to keep the PC open, I would think that a good and easy way to cool it to near room temperature would be to point a small fan (30cm diameter?) at the case opening from a distance of perhaps 30cm.

Hi Mondoman,

Thanks for the reply and suggestion.I am going to use a fan as you said.

The problem is with the motherboard. A techie. found out by fixing the processor in three different motherboards, Mercury, Azus and Gigabyte and found the temperature was around 38-42C and asked me to replace the motherboard or fix the motherboard. I gave the motherboard and it takes two weeks time to reach my place.

Regards,
Madhu

:(


Hello all,

I have been getting same error as madhu the previous shut down was due to thermal event (overheating). also been facing the nv4_disp.dll error "blue screen of death". well i am using same motherboard as madhu 915 thingy. is that really a heat problem or is it some kinda bug or something i dont really know. Nv4_disp.dll is the bios overload error i know that buy this overheating part i dont realy seem to have a clue cause i sit inside a airconditioing all the time but still got this err so dont really seems to be a heat problem. even inside the AC i tried keeping my side open still the same so there is really a MOther board error or heat problem or just a bug hmmm..... please some tech GURU help me. i a cant play WoW :(

regards,
svapnil
INDIA

I'm not sure I understood your post right, since your capitalization is nonexistent. However, I know that nv4_disp is the display driver for your nvidia something-or-another geforce card.
I'd bet my money, your debug screen (blue screen) is telling you that a driver's fucked up .... I'd suggest trying to change driver for your graphics card http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

If you've got a geforce 5,6,7 or 8 series, try the newest drivers. If it's an old thing (geforce 2,3,4 or tnt2) try an old driver (6x version)

Today i got a new motherboard, from Intel, fixed and tried ..still it says the temperature is the same and other readings also. So mailed intel at the following email addresses apacsupport@mailbox.intel.com and apacsupport@intel.com.

Waiting for the response from them...

In the meantime, i contacted the dealer who gave me this new motherboard..he asked me to wait until i get a response from Intel. After that he s planning to change the processor,fan and motherboard.



thanks

regards,
Madhu.