Running Speccy Free has helped me a lot, likely prevented hard disk failure on one drive and perhaps a CPU core(s) meltdown;)
I had experienced sluggish performance (to put it mildly) of late; the CPU load as presented by Task Manager was forever at 50-100 percent even just loading another webpage... So sad...
And for example running Freemake Video Downloader and then converting the .flv clip to .mp3 completely overwhelmed the machine and sent the CPU load through the roof - I couldn't play music in VLC at the same time without it stuttering unbearably but had to pause it for the duration.
It was no fun. Running Speccy on April 26 to see what I could see, it looked like this:
high temperatures all around. So a short while back I disassembled the machine and, sure enough, somebody had sneakily inserted an appalling amount of dust that was trapped in the aluminum radiator and CPU fan assembly (or I hadn't looked closely enough in there last time I vacuumed inside the PC, whatever).
After vacuuming and when the dust had settled I replaced the silicon paste (which was bone-dry) with newly bought, reassembled and it's a whole different experience now to use the machine - just enjoyable as I remembered it.
However, when I ran Speccy post-vacuuming etc I got this temperature warning/OK combination on one drive which I don't understand:
Well - is the temperature OK or isn't it?
Thank you.
(Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit SP1, AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+, now at 55 °C)
Not really as the D:\ drive hangs underneath the HDD bay by some 1/2 inch, suspended in tie-wraps
(for smoother running) while the C:\ drive is mounted above it in the last position of the bay.
Perhaps I should increase the distance between the two?
"is there a frontfan (for chassis)? --> is the frontfanport free of dust? (between frontfan-chassis and modesty panel of your tower?"
No. It looks like this from the outside:
the panel has tiny holes in it, there is some small air movement into the chassis but no fan. It's an ASUS barebones and came like that. I suppose I could mount a fan on the inside of the panel.
"is the frontfanport free of dust?"
The panel is dust free, there is right now some small air movement into the chassis as I said. But maybe a 4 or 5 inch fan on the inside would help. Should the direction of flow be out or in?
- No, there's something different going on. The word "Warning" is meant for the SMART status of your HD, not the temprerature. You solved the heat problem by removing all the dust. Run SPECCY once again and post the link that pops up (File > Publish snapshot) in your next reply. I think your HD is in the 1st stages of failing.
"Thumbs up for SPECCY !!!! Many computerhelp websites (e.g. "BleepingComputer") use this program to diagnose computerproblems."
And no wonder! Like I said up there in the OP: "Running Speccy Free has helped me a lot, likely prevented..."
Anyway thx for the heads-up re: D: - perhaps the drive will fail and perhaps not. I have been mighty busy for the past 8 hours, replacing the fan in the power supply (dead as a doornail) and fitting another one behind what member trium called the modesty panel.
That position had a hole punched out for a fan as well as the four requisite holes to fasten it - but no fan. I had both fans saved since I looted and scrapped a Fujitsu Maxi-tower PC (lots of room in there, like a clothes closet;) so I am out nothing in the whole de-heating process exept the silicon paste.
Here's the before-and-after Speccy screens:
Ouch!
And now:
This looks better, the PC performs like new and with some luck the D: drive will have survived despite my neglect.
And thanks to the excellent advice I have recieved from you and trium.
flow in through the tower and out on/through your power supply --> so that is generating an air flow, whichtransfers the heat of the computerout on the backside.
Your old Seagate 200 GB hard drive definitely is failing.The hard drive's powered on time is over 7 years. The drive has 86 reallocated sectors, but the real value of reallocated sectors is 594 reallocated sectors. Currently the drive has 4 pending sectors to be reallocated, but they can't be reallocated since the hard drive has run out of spare sectors for sector reallocation. Thus these 4 sectors also show up as 4 sectors which are uncorrectable and which can't be reallocated. Back up your data on this hard drive and replace it as soon as possible. Quite frankly, I am amazed that you got over 7 years of use out of this old hard drive since most cheap consumer hard drives start to fail around year 5.
Hello GoneToPlaid, good to have you weigh in on this!
Yes, it's an old heap of junk, that's for sure. According to your (well-researched, I'm sure) figures it should have packed in two years ago. So...I figure I'm 'ahead' two years. Not too shabby;)
As I said way up there, after extensive cleaning, some new fans and replacing the old, dry thermal paste the PC performs like new and with some luck the D: drive will have survived despite my neglect.
Or it won't in which case I have a spare plus it's backed up on my external 1TB drive.
I guess I was just born lucky - deal with it. Oh, and lighten up some...it's-a not so bad.
- @GoneToPlaid: How do you see that the drive was that old ? I see the "Power On Count" and the "Power On Time" but I fail to see how you conclude the drive is 7 years old.
- "Kokopelli" 's system is a desktop and that also helps to increase the life of the HD. The desktop just simply goes nowhere and is (much) less exposed to (physical) movements/shocks.
even just loading another webpage... 
your post, and got this 
Enough positivity is enough!
