Is my PC in need of replacing now

chickmug

Switches itself off depsite my having air blown inside to clean fans which I thought may of caused over heating. Other little niggles arsing like not recognising the keyboard, then not recognising the mouse, needing more restarts to sort these issues & generally speed processes up. It is 4 years old and not sure how that equates to human age. Is it middle aged or an old aged pensioner?

I run CC cleaner, AVG, and such but just feeling vulnerable?

tanker21

You didn't say whether laptop or tower/desktop? Maker and model number?

I've had a laptop with dodgy that turned itself off when it got hot - after running for a few mins. Could not get replacement fan, machine now junk.

On the other hand, if its a desktop, replacement bits are more likely to be available.

U've_been_framed

Sounds like overheating.
When switched off, open up the case and have a look inside. Is there a lot of dust, especially on the fans? This includes the fan on the PSU. Clean it all up with a can of compressed air. Do the fans turn freely? If not, replace them. Switch on. Are all the fans working? Replace any that are faulty.
There should be something in your BIOS to tell you what the cpu temperature is. If it is getting anywhere near 70C you have cooling problems.

5bellies_2

chickmug wrote: »

It is 4 years old and not sure how that equates to human age. Is it middle aged or an old aged pensioner?

In PC terms, a computer is classed as obsolete after 18 months - but they rarely are.

chickmug

It is PC and I have cleaned out using compressed air spray. I guess I will need to see how long before it turns off again but I have another PC and laptop, in the house, both under a year old. So reluctant to buy another unless I am forced to.

waynedance

maybe a format and and reload windows from scratch would help, maybe loads of crap on hard drive that clean up programs can not remove.

SJames_3

Is it switching off or resetting? Could try using Speedfan to log your temps and PSU voltages, when it does reset or turn off, go take a look at the log and see if anything is amiss.

espresso

chickmug wrote: »

It is PC and I have cleaned out using compressed air spray.

Did you thoroughly clean the muck out between the fins of the CPU heatsink? There is an interesting video here showing what happens with insufficient cooling but it also shows the fins on various different types of heatsinks.

superstylin

good god espresso that's scary!

my laptop is around 5yrs old now. It recently switched off and refused to switch back on. After pulling it to bits i found the fan pulling air from the processor to have a dense block of dust in it's workings. Pulled this thing out as a whole, carpeted my home with it then put laptop back together and everything was a-ok.:p

Teez73

chickmug wrote: »

Switches itself off depsite my having air blown inside to clean fans which I thought may of caused over heating. Other little niggles arsing like not recognising the keyboard, then not recognising the mouse, needing more restarts to sort these issues & generally speed processes up. It is 4 years old and not sure how that equates to human age. Is it middle aged or an old aged pensioner?

I run CC cleaner, AVG, and such but just feeling vulnerable?

Since you have other PCs in the house you can easily determine if it's a software or hardware issue. Back up all your important data, reinstall Windows, and see how stable it is for surfing over a week.

It does sound like overheating though. Does your PC's BIOS have the ability to show CPU temperature? If so wait until your PC crashes and immediately get into your BIOS and see what the CPU temperature is. Whilst you are in there see if your BIOS reports the speed of the various fans in your system and see if any are displaying 0 RPM (either they're dead or optional or not installed). There are also utilities out there that display temperature readings from your CPU and/or motherboard whilst you use Windows, so you can try to find one that works (try the site of your monterboard manufacturer) and keep an eye on that. There should be a number of websites out there that'll tell you the safe upper limit your CPU will run at.

Good luck.

Teez73

U've_been_framed wrote: »

Sounds like overheating.
When switched off, open up the case and have a look inside. Is there a lot of dust, especially on the fans? This includes the fan on the PSU. Clean it all up with a can of compressed air. Do the fans turn freely? If not, replace them. Switch on. Are all the fans working? Replace any that are faulty.
There should be something in your BIOS to tell you what the cpu temperature is. If it is getting anywhere near 70C you have cooling problems.

Above is sound advice. I have 4yr old AMD 2500s and they run without any fan on the CPU. They're fine unless they go past 70C and I get the problems you've described. They only ever want past 70C when a case fan failed and I discovered that by looking in the BIOS.