herme3 Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 I have worked inside many computers, and all of them have a cooling fan for the CPU. There is normally a plastic piece that directs the warm air from the processor to a vent on the back of the computer. However, all of the computers I have worked on have Pentium processors. Now, I am working on an AMD, and there is a cooling fan directly on the processor. However, there is no plastic piece connecting the fan to the vent at the back. It looks like the warm air is just blowing out inside the computer. I am trying to recover files from the computer because the hard drive crashed. The IT department of the company that owns the computer said that the hard drive probably overheated. Could this be because the warm air is blowing inside the computer, instead of going outside? I have never worked with AMD computers, so I don't know how the cooling systems are supposed to be designed. One more question, the longer to computer runs, the darker the picture becomes on my monitor. I know that there is nothing wrong with the monitor because it works fine with my own computer. Could this be a sign of the system overheating, or could this be another issue? Please let me know. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5614 Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 CPU cooling is supposed to get heat away from the CPU, which yours does, but in the process it places warm air around other components... clearly a poor design. The only effect heat has on a computer is to raise resistance in the electronics and potentially start to melt/liquify the electronics... It is possible heating is the cause of your problems [hard drive/monitor] but I couldnt say for certain if it's the only factor or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herme3 Posted June 18, 2005 Author Share Posted June 18, 2005 CPU cooling is supposed to get heat away from the CPU' date=' which yours does, but in the process it places warm air around other components... clearly a poor design. The only effect heat has on a computer is to raise resistance in the electronics and potentially start to melt/liquify the electronics... It is possible heating is the cause of your problems [hard drive/monitor'] but I couldnt say for certain if it's the only factor or not. Thank you for your reply. I looked inside the computer, and there is a fan on the bottom of the power supply. It is taking the hot air, moving it through the power supply, and then out the computer through another fan that is at the back of the power supply. I saw some AMD cooling system designs, and it says that a fan on the bottom of the power supply helps keep the CPU at a lower temperature. However, all of the designs show a rear cooling fan, which this computer does not have. It looks like there is a place for the rear cooling fan to go, because there is a vent on the back of the computer. However, there is no fan attached. Do you think that the power supply unit's fans would be enough to keep the computer from overheating? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calbiterol Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 Doesn't the power supply's fan have to remove the heat from converting AC to DC? Adapters like that generate large amounts of heat (my aunt's cat likes to sit on my laptop's adapter to stay warm, it's quite entertaining to move it ), which, IIRC, is removed/dealt with by the power supply's cooling fan. IMHO, no, if anything, it's only contributing to the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5614 Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 What from the sounds of it we have is a 2 fan PSU, an intake and an outake, which provides a nice flow of air... the fact that the intake is taking in heat off the CPU means that the cooling for the PSU isn't as efficient as it could be but it does help the CPU. Now you ask about "overheating"... well, for a computer to actually overheat (ie. part of it melt) you must have a pretty patheic system, even the single fan you have blowing into your case should stop or drastically reduce the chance of melting. But when computers get hot component lifespan decreases, clock speeds go down etc. basically a hot computer --> short / slow life! The thing which I like to do (assuming you don't have a heat sensor on your CPU) is to open the case and (whilst the computer is running) you can safely touch any heatsink as the heatsink is not conducting electricity (obviously be careful, try not to electrocute yourself, standard safety blah blah blah) You say there's room on the back of your case for a main case fan... I'd recommend you buy one, assuming its a 80mm one it shouldn't cost more than £10 or $20 and that's for a good one. Standard cooling involves 1 fan taking heat off the CPU heatsink and out of the case and one taking heat out of the PSU... people who care about computers and like fast clock speeds often get a little bit more. Dual-fan PSUs are common, as are fans on graphics cards. Apparently (I don't know personally, but others say) that AMDs generally produces less heat than Intel chips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insane_alien Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 a bit off topic here but i read that pentium IV's have a sort of thermal protection thingy for the CPU while AMD's don't. Say for instance that for one reason or another the heatsink falls off or the fan fails completely then the PIV would reduce its clock speed to something tiny so it produces a lot less heat. it is just enough for you to turn your computer off. an AMD on the other hand would quickly (within 20sec) melt. Also with your problem, More fans the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5614 Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 IMHO in general more fans the better! The newer batch of Pentium 4 processors will shut down or reduce clock speeds when they reach a certain hot temperature (don't know the value) but the older P4s do not have this feature. Can't say for AMD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insane_alien Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 i just read it in a long lost from the historylist website about this where they deliberately took the heat sink and fan off while it was running. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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