Jump to content

Computer running slow after cleaning.

Visceral89
 Share
Posted

Hi Linus Tech Tips.

My girlfriend ran into a rather strange error after cleaing out some dust from her PC.

 

First of all, we tried to fix one of her headphone jacks on the front ot the PC so we had to open it up, and realized it needed some cleaning. 

We used a vaccum to get out the large amount of dust collected and a dry whipe of the interiors to get out the really heavy dusted areas.

This included wiping the circuit board of the GPU very gently with a cloth towel (dry).

We cleaned all the fans in a simmilar mannor.

 

After this, we put everthing back together and the PC started like normal. 

However, the preformance had a significant drop, for example, her framerate in League of Legends dropped from a constant 60 to about 15-30 at the same settings as before.

We have tried to find out where the error might have occured so we tried running a video file, and it seems rather slow.

There has also been random shutdowns of her system, either while playing games or just using the computer as normal, they seem random.

 

We have also tried various benchmarks to try and find where the error might be located with no success yet since every is reporting normal figures.

We dont know what to do, and what we did wrong.

The drivers are all up to date.

 

Her system specs are as follows:

 

Windows 7 Home Premium  64bit.

MotherBoard: MSI H55M-ED55 Socket 1156

CPU: Intel i5 760 2.8GHZ

GPU: Geeforce GTS 450 

Memory: 8GB Kingston ValueR 1333mhz DDR3

PSU:Silver Power Sp-SS400 (400w)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

First, what kind of vacuum cleaner did you use and where did you put it?

"It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." - Carl Sagan.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you" - Edward I. Koch

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Any possibility that you zapped a board? I'm thinking about ESD 

CPU - i5 4690K @ 4.5Ghz l CPU Cooler - Nepton 240m l GPU - MSI GTX970 gaming 4g 2-way SLI l SLI Bridge - MSI Gaming 2-way L Pro l Mobo - MSI Z97-G45 Gaming l RAM - 2x8GB Vengeance Pro 2133mhz DDR3 l PSU - Corsair HX750i l SSD - 2x Samsung 840 Evo 250GB in raid 0 | HDD - WD Black 2TB | Case - NZXT H440 Red/Black l OS - Windows 10 l Mouse - Logitech G502 l MousePad - XTRFY NiP lightning l KeyBoard - Corsair Vengeance K70 RGB (Red) | Headset - Asus ROG Spitfire | Monitor - Asus PG279Q - VG248QE l PCPP - http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sxTpsY | Please don't buy CX PSU for a high end PC

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Did you remove the CPU heatsink? (The big metal thing with a fan in the center of the motherboard, in case you don't know). If you did, you have to put a little bit of thermal paste between it and the CPU. I'm pretty sure you didn't so your CPU is getting hot as fuck and shutting down/throttling.

 

AMD 860K @ 4.3GHz ; Kingston HyperX Fury 2400MHz ; Asus A88XM-Plus ; Sapphire R9 270X 2GB ; 600W Tacens Radix VII AG 80+Silver  ; Cooler Master TX3 Evo

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Dont vacuum computers...

Intel 3570k @ 4.4 GHz |Asus Sabertooth Z77 |EVGA GTX 660 Ti FTW |Kingston HyperX Beast 16 Gb DDR3 1866 (2x8Gb)


|Samsung 840 250 GB |Western Digital Green 2TB 2x |Cooler Master 850w 80+ Gold |Custom Water Cooling Loop |Noctua NF-F12 4x
|Noctua NF-A14 3x |Corsair Carbide 500R (White) |Corsair K95 |Razer Mamba |Razer Megalodon |Samsung SyncMaster T220 2x Computer Bucket List   Greatest Thread Ever   WAN Show Drinking Game  GPU Buyers Guide
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

You may have fried a hardware component. You're not supposed to use a vacuum cleaner to get rid of dust.

 
  • AMD Athlon X4 760K CPU   |   MSI FM2+ ATX A88X-G45 Motherboard   |   8GB 1600MHz RAM   |   MSI GTX 760 GPU (Reference)
  • Thermaltake Versa H22 Case   |   1TB Seagate, 0.5TB Hitachi (7200RPM)   |   ArcticRed+ 700WStock    |   Windows 8.1

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Did you remove the CPU heatsink? (The big metal thing with a fan in the center of the motherboard, in case you don't know). If you did, you have to put a little bit of thermal paste between it and the CPU. I'm pretty sure you didn't so your CPU is getting hot as fuck and shutting down/throttling.

 

Yeah does sound like an overheating issue. Maybe its not seated properly as well. 

IMHO, vacuuming PCs are fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

First thing you need to do is check the fans.  Make sure no dust has dislodged and stopped one of them from turning.  Also, I've seen fans fail on more than one occasion after cleaning. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Thank you guys for the quick responses.

 

First of all, we made sure we didnt became static, but yes that might been an issue. Is there anyway to check if this is true. Beacuse the computer starts up and runs normally. Just slower.

 

The vaccuming was really necessary, is there a better way to clean really dusty computers?

 

All the fans seems to be working. But yes we did loose the CPU heatsing, but we coudlnt get it off completly.

 

What i really wonder is if  there any anyway we can test to see witch part of the computer that is acting up. I assume if we "fried" the GPU it would produce other results than not applying thermal paste to the CPU.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Thank you guys for the quick responses.

 

First of all, we made sure we didnt became static, but yes that might been an issue. Is there anyway to check if this is true. Beacuse the computer starts up and runs normally. Just slower.

 

The vaccuming was really necessary, is there a better way to clean really dusty computers?

 

All the fans seems to be working. But yes we did loose the CPU heatsing, but we coudlnt get it off completly.

 

What i really wonder is if  there any anyway we can test to see witch part of the computer that is acting up. I assume if we "fried" the GPU it would produce other results than not applying thermal paste to the CPU.

Try just running a stress test in aida64. post a screen shot here :) 

should look like this 

Downlload link : http://www.aida64.com/downloads/NzdhZDFmYTc=

4EzHSuA.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

[RESOLVED]

 

Hello again, thank you all so much for all the help you have given, you literally saved us a bunch of money for not having to leave the computer at a repair shop.

 

So we ran the aida stress tests. And we noticed that the CPU throttle was at 100% during the test and we got that overheating warning.

We went down to the store and got new thermal paste and cleaning alcohol and reapplied the heatsink to the CPU.

And now it works.

Theese are the results.

RwAqIVY.png

 

We couldnt take a screenshot of the CPU throttle since computer kept powering down.

 

Just want to thank you guys so much! Awesome forum you have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

[RESOLVED]

 

Hello again, thank you all so much for all the help you have given, you literally saved us a bunch of money for not having to leave the computer at a repair shop.

 

So we ran the aida stress tests. And we noticed that the CPU throttle was at 100% during the test and we got that overheating warning.

We went down to the store and got new thermal paste and cleaning alcohol and reapplied the heatsink to the CPU.

And now it works.

Theese are the results.

RwAqIVY.png

 

We couldnt take a screenshot of the CPU throttle since computer kept powering down.

 

Just want to thank you guys so much! Awesome forum you have.

Good to see you got it working again. For future reference, please do not vacuum PC components. Vacuum cleaners generate static electricity through normal operation.

"It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." - Carl Sagan.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you" - Edward I. Koch

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Good to see you got it working again. For future reference, please do not vacuum PC components. Vacuum cleaners generate static electricity through normal operation.

The right way, is to grab a can of compressed air, or an actual air compressor.

 

Give it a blow job, watch out for liquid spit, keep calm and have nice day.

Maximums - Asus Z97-K /w i5 4690 Bclk @106.9Mhz * x39 = 4.17Ghz, 8GB of 2600Mhz DDR3,.. Gigabyte GTX970 G1-Gaming @ 1550Mhz

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

The right way, is to grab a can of compressed air, or an actual air compressor.

 

Give it a blow job, watch out for liquid spit, keep calm and have nice day.

 

 

Blow job... Liquid spit... hehehehe

Mid-range Emulation Gaming and Video Rendering PC

[CPU] i7 4790k 4.7GHz & 1.233v Delidded w/ CLU & vice method [Cooling] Corsair H100i [Mobo] Asus Z97-A [GPU] MSI GTX 1070 SeaHawk X[RAM] G.Skill TridentX 2400 9-11-11-30 CR1 [PSU] Corsair 750M 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

[RESOLVED]

 

Hello again, thank you all so much for all the help you have given, you literally saved us a bunch of money for not having to leave the computer at a repair shop.

 

So we ran the aida stress tests. And we noticed that the CPU throttle was at 100% during the test and we got that overheating warning.

We went down to the store and got new thermal paste and cleaning alcohol and reapplied the heatsink to the CPU.

And now it works.

Theese are the results.

RwAqIVY.png

 

We couldnt take a screenshot of the CPU throttle since computer kept powering down.

 

Just want to thank you guys so much! Awesome forum you have.

 

Glad to help :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Troubleshooting

×