Overheating CPU

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PJabbers688

New Member
Hello, all! I have never posted on these forums before, but my mother is having computer troubles and so here I am. I have very minor knowledge in computer hardware (I'm more of a software guy hehe). I have replaced fans and graphic cards, but that's about it.

So last night mom heard something crack or fall inside or around her computer, immediately after which one of the fans started whirring extremely loudly. So today I opened it up to have a look inside. There is nothing loose inside that I can see or detect by gently shaking the computer. So I started it up, and downloaded HWMonitor to her computer. Everything seemed to be running fine; average fan speeds and temperatures as far as I could tell. So I started up a video game and waited to see what happened.

One of the fans started whirring extremely loudly, as she had explained. I looked at HWMonitor and it was going over 4500 rpm - very, very fast. Looked at temperatures; the motherboard temps were slightly hot but the real problem was the CPU. It is an Intel quad core, and it was very hot - one of the cores was at about 208 degress F. Not good. The fan in question was the one attached to the motherboard, not the fan attached to the back of the tower.

So I don't know if the "crack" or "something falling" she heard was related, as like I said I found no loose parts. And other than the fan speed and temperature, everything was running fine (could navigate the PC, play the video game with no problems, etc). So what could have caused a sudden increase in the temperature of her processor and what can we do to fix it?

Thank you all very much for your time.
 
Check the blades on the CPU fan and make sure none broke off. If it did break get a new heating/fan. Do not use the pc until its fixed.
 
I'm wondering if the clamp/s that hold the heatsink on to the processor have become loose. They would make quite a noise if the spring tension let go. The lack of clamping would cause the CPU to heat up and fan speed increase. If it's a multi-clamp setup, the heatsink may only be separated on one side.

I'm not big on taking the heatsink off unnecessarily but you should look at it very closely, the clamps in particular.
 
Nanobyte said:
I'm wondering if the clamp/s that hold the heatsink on to the processor have become loose. They would make quite a noise if the spring tension let go. The lack of clamping would cause the CPU to heat up and fan speed increase. If it's a multi-clamp setup, the heatsink may only be separated on one side.

I'm not big on taking the heatsink off unnecessarily but you should look at it very closely, the clamps in particular.
Click to expand...

I'm almost positive this is it. Sounds like the heatsink isn't securely mounted and there is a slight gap between the heatsink and the CPU.
 
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