Ophs

Well I leave my computers on 24 / 7 so it can number crunch for whatever distributed computing project takes my fancy. That's right I said computers, I got 4 of 'em and the one I do all my blogging on and that has all the programs I regularly use otherwise known as the Beast cos it's the best one, well it was a little hot last week but I notice the Processor temprature of it was a bit on the High side, it was 57C (134F) this was with the side of the case off and a fan blowing air in from that side but nothing helped, I even stopped the project it was running and ran a program I have called CPU Idle Extreme which is puts it under full load but turns bits of the processor off in doing so and cools the CPU down by making it produce less heat.. Anyway I got a new case for it and though while I transfer it to a new case with a front mount for a fan and a prefitted rear fan I'll check the Heatsink on the processor and see how much thermal transfer compound there is on there between the processor and it, well there wasn't much and I couldn't reuse the old stuff as I couldn't scrap it in to a useable pile.. I went okay, I'll clean it off and go find the tube of thermal paste I have, it's around here somewhere. Of course I couldn't find it (don't say it typical man can't find nothing) this was at 6:30 lastnight and I know you can't turn a processor of the speed I have on without a heatsink on it and without something to translate the heat from processor to heatsink. So I was stuck without my main computer for about 18hrs will I wait for the computer shop to open earlier on today.. Well I got it back up and running and so far it's doing better - it's 5C cooler at least and that is with the case full buttoned up and it running at full pelt once more - ya...
Rule 1 of building / refurbishing a PC - make sure you have all the tools you'll need in order to do the task at hand..
Building all you need is a small flat bladed screwdriver to undo the screws to open the case, and to put the screws in to hold the motherboard on the back plate, to hold the video card,sound card, tv capture card, etc in the appropriate slot inside the pc and to screw the case closed again once you've connected up the power supply and clipped in the heatsink on to the processor after it's fitted, to fit the hard drives / cd / dvd drives, cd / dvd writer. I could do anyone a step by step on how to build a pc if anyone wants to do it, well I think I pretty well could since all 4 of the machines I have here are hand built + I've oversaw a mate build his 1st pc..
Have fun and rememeber if your pc says it's getting hot check the fans..
I recommend getting Motherboard Monitor 5 < click the link to go to the website at livewiredev.com..
You need a little knowledge of what motherboard you have in the machine. A program that will tell you the manufacturer and the manfacturers number of your motherboard is a program called CPU-Z, Click Here it will tell you what processor you have as well as a few more peices of info, useful to have if you want to add more memory to it and need to know what type you have in it and what speed it is..you just look up the manufacturer then click the "+" beside that one and look for the number it gives you or as close as you can find, most motherboards are listed, it even has most dell / e-machine / hp ones included :)