Should I be worried?
 

In this hot weather I am turning the computer off occasionally instead of the usual once on stays on all day. The temperature software soon indicates 30º and the fan blows hard.

Just powered up and the desktop appeared as normal, it was populated with icons as was the taskbar. Sudenly they all vanished and only the desktop remained. It did this about six times as I sat and watched, then I switched off and left it for a few minutes. This time it's as per normal.

A one-off glitch? Or something saying goodbye?

30C is nothing in computer-land.

Also, your icons disappearing is not something that's related to heat.

Panic ye not (well, apart from what the real reason is for the icons disappearing)

Could be something overheating.

I had the following symptoms, in order, a few minutes apart:

- fans winding up to full blast
- sound disappearing
- entire machine freezing.

Turn if off, let it cool down for a while, then its fine again.

Then one day sound wasn't working at all when I turned it on. I replaced the sound card, everything fine from then on.

If you are concerned about over-heating, a good air-dustering of the interior, and a hoovering of the air vents may help.

While you are there, check that everything is seated correctly, no loose cables.

Also, ensure that there is plenty of space for air to circulate around the case, especially near the fan outlets and air grilles.

Saying the temperature reaches 30º doesn't tell us much - the temperature of what? GPU, CPU, HDD?

If any of those are only at 30ºC I would be very happy!

You might also consider installing additional fans, or larger fans, in the case.

In terms of wear on the components, HDDs are probably best left running rather than being switched on and off. Assuming that the PC isn't also doubling up as an oven, of course.

SD

Thanks for those. I do normally leave it running, on the less wear basis, although I have HDs set to turn off after 20mins. in the energy saver bit (!).

It's due for a vac - usually a couple of times a year, and while I'm at it I usually give everything socketed a tap with a screwdriver handle.

It's still running, so I will have to wait to next bootup and see if it does it again.

Oh, it's HD temp that's showing.

As mentioned above, 30 C isn't too hot, and the fan switching into high gear is normal.

If you have a non-contact thermometer (IR) handy, you might take a reading on the heatsink of your video card just to see what temp it's at.

And of course, you can always install one of those slot-mounted auxiliary cooling fans, if you have a free slot. They're about $10 USD.


To me, this sounds like something auto-updating in such a way that explorer.exe (not IE, but Win explorer) had to restart a few times. Usually something like this is handled during start-up as explorer launches, and the most you'll perceive is a "slow" start.

Have you recently installed any new software or made hardware changes?