Compaq fan Problem

Ive got an older Compaq Presario SR1803WM (yeah I know...its a WalMart Machine) Its virtually stock with a few minor exceptions...
ATI 2400 HD Pro video card, additional SATA Maxtor 145gb drive and 2gb of RAM.
It came with a Celeron 3.2ghz processor if that matters. Anyway, the CPU fan spools up and slows down repeatedly the entire time the machine is on regardless of CPU load. Speedfan show these readings...

CPU 35c
Ambient 35c
Remote 69c
HD1 35c
HD2 33c
Temp1 40c

Even just after startup at room temp from sitting over night off, the remote reads 60c. Ive never seen the CPU above 36c for any length of time. This noise is driving me nuts. It slowly started a few years ago while my wife ran it (this was without the ATI card) We bought the ATI card thinking her constant playing of FFXI was over taxing the onboard graphics card, when that didnt solve it, I added an additional fan, which didnt help either. This comp got set aside in the closet for a while, but recently my Dell died, so this one is my main PC now. im just waiting for the day the CPU fan finally shuts down and the whole thing melts down. SOmeone please help me!

 

Well, the insides are not very dusty at all. I havent checked between the heat sink fins, but the CPU temp is only 35c, so its really not getting very hot. The only extra fan I added was a small one venting out on the removable side panel, but that has since been removed. In fact, the fan still winds up even with the entire side panel off, so airflow isnt an issue. I will check the heat sink to be certain, but Im pretty sure its fairly clean.

 

Ok, after pulling the fan and heat sink, Ive corrected the problem, but created another so to speak. Seems the heat sink was jammed full of dust and junk...a thorough cleaning has brought cpu temp down to 27c. I also determined the remote is my graphics card...which after cleaning the heat sink started reading 103c and video ran choppy. That fan/heat sink was also gummy. A cleaning of that brought it's temp down to 86c. Here's the new problem...the main cpu fan is constant at 4600 rpms. it used to cycle from 2300-4500 and back (over and over and over). Im thinking maybe some new thermal paste may be in order? or is it possibly a connection somewhere? on initial startup, it spools to 4500, down to 2000, then after approx 1 second it spools back to 4500 and stays.

 

Final update...Thanks for the replies Halo. A quick trip to Radio Shack got me some Arctic Silver. A quick scrape of the old paste and applied the new to both the CPU and ATI GPU, and its as quiet as a sleeping baby. Judging by the Speefan temps, it was the GPU that was setting the fans off.

CPU 30c
Ambient 31c
Remote 51c (down from 103c last night!)
HD1 26c
HD2 22c
Temp1 40c

Its strange that the GPU setoff the CPU fan, but I dont really care now...it seems to be all better.

 

I had a customer who bought a new computer and gave me the old one, because the fan was howling like a banshee.
I took the CPU heat sink off of the cpu chip, removed the fan and just scrubbed the heck out of that heatsink in hot soapy water in my kitchen sink.
Then I carefully cleaned and re-oiled the fan and when I put it all back together, with some fresh heatsink grease, it ran real quiet.

I have 11 fans in my own system and at least once a year I tear it down and clean and oil all the fans and clean the CPU heatsink.

A little maintenance goes a long ways to keeping these PC's running in good shape.

It's good to read another success story. Thanks!

Shadow :cool

 

G'day, it reminds me of the old adage "Oil is cheaper than parts". To minimise dust issues I've recently resolved to get my machines up off the floor wherever possible. This has lead to other problems like desk space and lack of choice with boxes, and I'm even starting to think about dust filters. Maybe I should just get out more.

Cheers

 

Hi everyone...back for another update. Seems my celebration was slightly pre-mature. The fan still spools up under heavy video load (like youtube). At first I just wrote it off as a quirk. Now its finally annoyed me enough that I have attacked it full force. After another video card swap (this one being an Nvidia 7600 GS lended by a friend) the problem persisted. Speedfan can figure out the GPU temps (temp1, gpu, and core) Remote remained. I noticed a smaller heatsink under the CPU that was VERY hot to touch, so I decided to pull it. After cleaning off the dried out compound I noticed ATI written on the tiny chip underneath. Its the onboard graphics. Now here's the wierd part...it gets really hot, but its disabled in the Bios (set to PCI-e vs onboard) and it doesnt show up in Windows Control Panel at all. If its not being used, why would it get so hot?

Oh Remote temp is now at 60c at idle, 71c under load. 69c spools up the fans.