2013-11-25

AAAAAAAAAARGH! NOT AGAIN!

When I was at the club on Saturday, I took charge of the club's PC. This was pre-arranged and as the operators now bring their own laptops, I could remove it from the club.

Geoff ZS6GRL, had told me already that there were 'issues' with the PC. It would hang and he 'cured' the 'issue' by removing the display card and replacing it...

Well, when I got it to the workbench, I switched it on and it told me to 'Check System Health!'. So I did...

69C is far too high for the cpu after just switching on.

It is an 'old' PC and the assumption is that the thermal paste has gone bad...
But when I opened it up and checked the heat sink assembly and fan, I found this :-

I could not believe my eyes. There is the remains of a label stuck to the cpu! It has about a third of the thermal transfer area insulated from the heat sink.

I also had discovered that the plastic retaining clip had broken on the fan assembly. The remains can be seen at the top area. Obviously this has to be cleaned and the plastic retainer replaced.

Some of you reading this will already know about 'Murphy's Law'. This is one instance where he would jump in. This is an 'old' PC with an old fan assembly...
Of course the new [modern] fans will not fit the holes on the motherboard...

Part 2 to follow, after I have fixed the PC.
John ZS6WL

 
 

2 comments:

  1. Part 2 is coming later today. For those at the club last night, I shall name names and show pictures.
    73
    JB ZS6WL

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  2. So the rigmarole to simply make a comment is to stop spam. But it is quite over the top and time consuming...

    ReplyDelete