Hehe. I remembered you saying something about Homewood, so I thought of computer stores in the vicinity. There used to be one in SoHo but I don't know if it's there anymore or not. It's been like, 8 years since I lived in Homewood. :)
Everybody's given great suggestions and steps to check it out, especially blowing out the case with canned air - Dell Optiplexes are NOTORIOUS for gathering dust. It's like they have dust magnets hidden in the case for the sole purpose of making the inside of the case dustier than ancient Mayan ruins...or was that alien runes?
regardless.
If blowing the case out, et al, doesn't clear up the problem, definitely get it looked at by a professional. Dell motherboards are very componentized and a standard fan/heatsink may not work on your particular model. They have unique mounting arrangements for the HSF, and odd sized fans. Most HSF's come with a 40, 60, or 80mm fans...but I worked on one once that had a 50mm fan. Which you just can't buy in a store to replace it yourself.
But, the most important thing is you're right - it is somewhat of an emergency. If the CPU overheats too often it will not only shut down randomly to preserve itself, but cause a LOT of windows errors...most commonly problems accessing the memory and disk drives.
In other news, how is the Vestavia Rave doing? That was my theater of choice for a long time, but now I live in Chelsea and Lee Branch is just closer.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-03-02 06:06 pm (UTC)Everybody's given great suggestions and steps to check it out, especially blowing out the case with canned air - Dell Optiplexes are NOTORIOUS for gathering dust. It's like they have dust magnets hidden in the case for the sole purpose of making the inside of the case dustier than ancient Mayan ruins...or was that alien runes?
regardless.
If blowing the case out, et al, doesn't clear up the problem, definitely get it looked at by a professional. Dell motherboards are very componentized and a standard fan/heatsink may not work on your particular model. They have unique mounting arrangements for the HSF, and odd sized fans. Most HSF's come with a 40, 60, or 80mm fans...but I worked on one once that had a 50mm fan. Which you just can't buy in a store to replace it yourself.
But, the most important thing is you're right - it is somewhat of an emergency. If the CPU overheats too often it will not only shut down randomly to preserve itself, but cause a LOT of windows errors...most commonly problems accessing the memory and disk drives.
In other news, how is the Vestavia Rave doing? That was my theater of choice for a long time, but now I live in Chelsea and Lee Branch is just closer.