[thelist] Fan of Hardware

Hershel Robinson hershelr at netvision.net.il
Thu Jan 20 04:24:55 CST 2005


For you hardware fans out there, I could use a bit of advice about my
hardware and its fans. I recently purchased a new PC. An Intel mobo, a P IV
3.0 G CPU, 512 M DDRAM and an 80 G HD. I installed an ATI 7500 Dual Head
video card and a CDRW.

The first machine came damaged and I sent it back (the dealer was very
friendly about it) and the second machine he sent seems to work.

I usually shut down at night (mostly so I can cover up everthing with a
sheet--I live in a dusty area). One night I left the machine on so it was on
24 hrs. When I came back to it and did some ray-tracing (CPU-intensive but I
did NOT do a whole lot of it) I suddenly had alerts from my Intel Active
Monitor app that System Zone 2 was in the red zone (50 deg C). I saw that
the CPU itself was 58, right next to its own red zone at 60. The room
temperature was low at the time--I hadn't yet turned on my space heater.

I called the dealer and he said he thinks the second box he sent me has a
fan on the box, but he's not sure--he doesn't remember exactly what they
built the second time. I myself don't see one--I see the one for the PS, the
one on the CPU and there's on on my graphics card. He thinks in front of the
hard drive maybe there's one--the power switch and reboot switch are there
and there's a plastic plate so I can't really see, but I don't think there's
a fan there. He said he would send me another fan, which he did. I will
install that when I have a chance. He said I could put it in the back,
there's a place above where the cards go.

My question is, what else should I do? Should I stress-test the machine?
Should I run specifically a heat-test? If so are there any recommendations
for where I can find such tests?

Any advice whatsoever is appreciated. The dealer does have a good reputation
and was recommended to me by two parties.

Thanks,
Hershel

<tip type="Windows System Monitoring">

http://www.coolmon.org/

"CoolMon is a program for monitoring vital system stats and almost anything
else you wish to display on the desktop. It can also display stats from
remote pc's and publish real-time stats on a webpage. The application can
display CPU, RAM and page file usage, hard drive usage, MotherBoard Monitor
temperatures and fan speeds, various network stats and much, much more."

This is a free tool. I use it and I like it. My favorite feature is the CPU
usage monitor (digital) in the system tray.

</tip>



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