Hello all,

I don't subscribe to OT with this e-mail... So I am answering from what I
remember.

John (my compatriot I believe) suggested that it might be the contact grease
problem:

After I disassembled all those things (thanks god, nothing broken) I am
quite certain now that it has to be the major cause why the PC (quite new,
less than a year in operation :) ) worked just fine for the past several
months, and the problem only surfaces now.  The dust has covered almost a
bit round area of the spaces between fins of the heat sink. It can be seen
more clearly when every thing is disassembled... as I said almost all area
were covered except those I had removed the dust with tweezer.  Anyway I had
prepared a new grease for reassembly.


Gus then suggested several things:

I tried to attach photo in my first post... unfortunately it got rejected by
the server.  In that photo you can see how 'bad' the condition. Sorry as I
just forwarded the message and forgot to give more clearer description
(needed without the photo) in my first post.

The temperature here will be more than 30 degree C at the noon till
evening... but my room is air conditional room. So it sounds like
irrelevant.

Adding another heat sink will almost mean abandon the existing one. I see no
way I can attach a new heat sink to current one? Are you really meant so?

Adding another fan:  I think this really make sense... it might be my fault
after all.  Actually my PC casing has the extra fan at one size of the
casing cover. It used one power supply connector.  I have taken out the size
cover for 2 reason. First I need that connector for my second hard drive...
secondly I felt it would be nice if the cover was left out so that I could
access the internal of the PC easily. I need to change the internal
configuration frequently... like add in a second network card, take it out
later, exchange hard drive etc...  It seems to me now that move certainly
has reduced the internal air flow - well something that I have to think for
solution now :)

Other methods like adding electric cooler (I hope I haven't mentioned the
worng one), water cooling , frozen carbon dioxide etc might be a bit over
skill/over effort at the moment :)  I just want to get my PC back to its
original condition, where it has operated for months.  Thanks anyway for
those suggestions. I just learnt some of it like the frozen carbon dioxide
in your reply :)



John Ferrell added several comments plus a link to a board photo:

That's a nice photo.  It shows how the thing look like when the fan was
disassembled.  Surely your comments plus the photo have given me another
clue as I was too worry about breaking anything in the disassembly process.
Anyway I have one observation to add, after I have disassembled the fan.  I
think the longest the life of the fan, the less the chance you can
successfully take the heat sink off... I took it off just after I shut down
my PC and the heat of the plastic material of the whole thing make me
believe that it might get more and more fragile in the long run.  I mean it
will eventually lost its elastic nature one day and disassembly it will
almost certain to break it.  This is quite true for those 4 points which
will hook directly with the metal parts of the heat sink.




I'll try to assembly everything back in next couple of hours.  The result
will only know after another days of observation :)


Best regards,

WH Tan

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