oblivion92

Distinguished
Sep 26, 2008
3
0
18,510
So I have a fairly old (3+ years) machine with a stock 2.4 Q6600 (G0) with stock cooling solution from HP and it has worked just fine for all these years. But recently I've noticed that the CPU fan will kick on to 100% sporadically - even at idle sometimes! I downloaded RealTemp to get an idea of my temps and they are all very high: 77 74 71 69. That's at idle... my maximum at 10% load are like this: 81 79 77 74. And my room temp is never above 75 degrees, but probably never below 65.

So my initial thought is: oh yeah, I'll have to go out and get a new fan and that should fix the issue. But I'm wondering what has caused this all of a sudden? If there could be some issue with the motherboard? What course of action would you advise? I have no doubt stock cooling is terrible, but if I buy a nice fan, would that simply be delaying the inevitable?

Thanks guys, any help is much appreciated!

Regards,
Mark
 
My first action here would be to blow out the computer real good with compressed air. Pay extra attention to the Heatsink and all the fans - likely you have some dust causing airflow blockage somewhere. While you are in there, you might check to ensure the heatsink is fully seated onto the CPU.
Hope it helps