How bad is this you think?

[borbos]

Ok will sound like a n00b here but hey. Went out to an evening meeting computer was on when I went out come back and it was off. Odd I asked the usual suspects wife son if they turned it off both said no. Tried the case switch nothing checked cord in back plugged in. Took off side of case hitting switch nothing. Being an electrician went got my digital meter took the cord out of the back of the case and tested it. Had 120 volts hot to neutral and hot to ground plugged it back in. Computer came on but the case fans aren't running. Turned off computer broke the connection, re made the connection and fans came on when I turned the computer back on fans came on. Seems to be running now but the "cooling fins on the cpu are caked with dust. So left the side off and have a fan blowing onto the motherboard. So how bad is this?

[glc]

If the heatsink is caked with dust, it's time to blow all the dust out of the computer. Otherwise, it's just going to keep overheating. If it's that bad, you are going to need more than canned air.

[borbos]

Ok got the canned air blew out the entire case everything seems back to normal. What made the case act that way? And going forward what can I do to prevent more issues. Thanks for the response GLC appreciate it

[jdeb]

heat sensors on the board

[borbos]

Are there heat sensors on the motherboard? If so how do I monitor them if not how do I put them on? And how come every time I think I know a lot there is a lot more to know?

[jdeb]

glc is correct in terms of dust, if your cpu is caked as you say then it's possible the flexible cpu heat sensor under the cpu will notice that the heat is not dissipating from the cpu/heatsink and cause the motherboard to shut down... a safety feature. there also could be a system temp sensor embedded on one of the chips maybe near the chip set? if it is buried in dust, this can trigger a shutdown as well, I assume from what you say, it was the cpu temp sensor.

the funny thing is, I have many systems out in the field that are in the worst possible (dirty, extremely dusty) shops and they just keep on going. I'm talking, you pull the desktop cover off and blow them out with compressed air and it is a thick cloud of dust. I am always amazed that these systems even still work but they do. They always will show a 20 + degree drop in temp after performing this simple operation. Note: the customers almost never want to spring for the 600.00 computer cabinet, they actually cost more than the cpu (desktop).

the monitor is read in the bios if you need to check it, it will tell you fan speeds, cpu temps etc.