Overheating

[richlevy]

So my desktop computer is shutting off after about 20 minutes of use. I have confirmed that this is a heat issue, since the computer stays on indefinitely if I remove the cover and the amount of time it stays on is shorter when restarted soon after an unexpected shutdown.

The odd thing is that there have been no changes made to the computer. The three fans are all spinning. This includes the fan in the power supply, the 80mm fan I bought a few months ago to place in the back of the case, and the original CPU fan.

I vacuumed all of the dust from the vicinity of the chip and in the cooling block above it. There is some dust on peripheral cards, but the case and motherboard are pretty clean where I can see it.

My current theories are:

1) Dust under the cooling block next to the CPU or between the cooling block and the CPU.

2) The CPU fan speed has diminished. It's a original equipment (maybe five years old) but it's spinning at 2003 RPM. The rear 3-speed fan has a max speed of 2557, so the CPU fan speed is respectable.

3) The power supply is heating up due to age, dust, or it's fan is slowing. Speedfan does not report the power supply temperature or fan speed.

4) I thought the hard drives might be contributing to the heat problem, but they're running at %99F and %102F.

5) I've noticed performance issues with my computer. It's possible the CPU is just heating up due to background processes. I get Windows and VirusScan updates, so the software load continually increases.

I've already removed the CPU fan and cleared off some dust. The next step would be to pull the cooling brick between the CPU fan and the CPU and clean up any dust I found there.

There are no more spots for fans in my case. The rear fan cutout is actually for a 90mm fan but I had could only find an 80mm. It's possible the larger size might make a difference. It's also possible that a slightly faster CPU fan might fix the problem.

Currently we're just running it without the cover.