We have several computers in our house - “the laptop” (also known as a Macbook), “the desktop” (also known as an ancient Compaq Presario that lives in the incredibly untidy study under the desk), and “Jonathan’s toy” (also known as an Asus EEE PC).
The poor old Presario has not been very well recently. The fans have been bursting to life for the first time in it’s existence. This usually means you either have a virus that is causing the computer to work overtime, or the computer is breaking a sweat just to sit doing nothing.
After a bit of research I downloaded a freebie from the internet called “SpeedFan”, which let me see the temperatures inside the box. It turned out the CPU was idling at somewhere around 68 degrees. Not good. 70 is a common “limit” that a typical CPU of this vintage should not exceed even when stressed - sure, they can run hotter than that, but their life expectency reduces sharply.
While looking certain doom in the face, I had a brainwave. The hoover.
Opening the side of the computer up was like a scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, where Indy breaks into catacombs filled with cobwebs. I didn’t see any rats run from the computer, but spiders have obviously been at work (probably to provide provenance of the word “bug” in it’s true sense - back in the days of mini and mainframe computers, bugs getting into the clean rooms were a real nuisance - they caused problems with electro mechanical devices like relays).
A minute or two with the vacuum cleaner later, and I looked at the CPU temperature graph again. 48 degrees. Removing 4 years worth of dust and cobwebs from the motherboard, processor and most importantly, the air vents and fans, the temperature of the CPU dropped by 20 degrees centigrade. Just shows what airflow can do - even to the most common of desktop machines.
I stepped back away from the Dell website that I had been inching towards. Yes, this machine will be replaced at some point in the next year, but it’s stay of execution just got lengthened.
It’s funny really - at work I have a monster dual core Dell under my desk, with more memory than I know what to do with (needed to run Virtual Machines with SharePoint 2007 on), hardware raided hard drives, and a f*ck off graphics card to help Vista run AeroGlass without breaking a sweat. I also have a 17C/3 Dell laptop, with dual core and tons of memory. Back at home I have a menagerie of “just good enough” machines that have seen better days.