On Wed, 27 Nov 2013, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: > Michael Hennebry wrote: >> On Wed, 27 Nov 2013, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: >>> One thing I've never done, or thought of until now, was whether the >>> thermal grease between the CPU and the heat sink had dried out. If it's >>> running hot, that's a possibility, so you might clean that off and put >>> on some new (a buck or so at any computer parts store). Doesn't need > much - >>> the force of tightening the heat sink will spread it much farther than >>> you expect it to, and you don't want it coming out the sides. >> >> "the force of tightening the heat sink" frightens me silly, >> but I suppose that would be better than a dead CPU fan. >> My recollection is that that does not come off. > > Not to worry. It will probably be a lever that you push down and it > catches. I doubt it's like in some servers, where you screw it on... and > even in that case, you screw it till you feel it stop turning. I found my fans and am about to get some thermal grease and a megohm resistor for static discharge. Sometime today or tomorrow I will likely open the case with fear and trepidation. The sides and top of the case are metal, but painted with an insulator. The front is plastic. The back is metal. I expect I should touch that before opening the case. What about after? Is there something else I should touch before trying to edit its guts? If thermal grease is the problem, how do I find out and how do I clean off the old stuff? I've read that just adding more is not a good idea. If I add to much thermal paste, what do I do about it? > It *really* isn't a Big Deal. These days, nothing's like it was back in > the eighties, when taking a system apart was a *lot* of screws, and you > could place things the wrong way. For a long time now, they expect people > to upgrade or replace parts (cheaper parts, more failures), and if no one > else, the zillions of tech support companies leaned on the manufacturers, > because they wanted their techs to spend less time per repair. -- Michael hennebry at web.cs.ndsu.NoDak.edu "On Monday, I'm gonna have to tell my kindergarten class, whom I teach not to run with scissors, that my fiance ran me through with a broadsword." -- Lily