it is too hot

OK, I've been ike a month trying tofigure out why my computer is slow. First I thought it was the new Avira. Then I thought it was malware. TimW helped me that and it was not malware. It is a Dell Inspiron 8200. It is old and it will never be really quick, but it has beengetting ridiculous. This morning (the room and the machine were rather cold) it was fast, or at least as fast as it ever gets. Then is slowed down. I checked and it was blowing hot air out the back. Both vents were dirty. The vent at the cooling fan was blowing warm air. The cooling fan is either 1-2 years old (I forget which). Also there was a funny noise (hissing-like), so I assume that it is time for a new cooling fan. The power supply vent was dirty also. I opened the chassis and the metal box that contains the power supply was warm. So, do I just clean out the vents? Does not seem smart to blow that crud into the box. Should I instal a new power supply? This looks to be straightforward enough, but there are a lot of cables and I do not want to screw anything up. I'd like a video or a manual that shows all the steps, can anyone help me out? Finally, the best place to buy parts? Thanks. I'm sure that MG will come thru.

 

I alredy did that. Comp still gets warm. right now I do not hear the fan running. Power unit is not warm however.

 

Download CoreTemp which will monitor your CPU temps and post back the results. May be worth removing your CPUs heatsink and cleaning off all the old thermal paste and putting some fresh on.

Boot up your PC with the side off. Firstly this will let you see whether all your case fans are working and secondly it may help to keep your PC cool until you can resolve the problem.

 

Best choice for the Thermal Paste would be Arctic Silver, in my opinion.
Just don't use too much, which is as bad as none at all.
A dab the size of a BB should suffice once spread evenly.

 

I installed Core Temp. I do not think it is working. Here is what it is reading now. Tjmax 0, Core #0 0 toTjMax, min 0, max 0, load2. I tried running it in Administrator and got an error message that driver will not load. Do I need to install it in Administrator? ( I did't). Vents are no blowing warm air. How hot should thr heat sink get?

 

So, I opened the case, and the fan was running. Also all the vents were blowing cool air! Before I opened it they were blowing warm air. Eventualy the fan stopped but I assume that this is because I had shut down the computer. I restrarted the computer and the fan came on - blowing cool air.

 

Check the inlet where your fan draws outside air into the machine.

 

All yesterday the case was open. Fan blew cool air all day. PSU got quite warm - how hot are they supposed to get - and anywway would a hot PSU slow down my computer? Remember everything else ncluding the HD was cool. This morning it is taking forever to load the homepage (doing it now). BTW all functions are slow (for example Word), not just the internet. It seems to get hung up, then sometimes I get a message "not responding", sometimes I get a white page, and sometimes I get both. I wonder if my HD is going?

One more thing, I was using Chrome and had IE6 as a back up. After one Chrome update it seemed to slow down then got worse and worse. I instaled IE8 and deleted IE6 and Chrome. This leads me to think that the registry is corrupted. Ran Comodo System Cleaner yesterday, but things did not get better or worse.

 

IE would not open this morning. Devce manager said that the HD ws working properly, but the troubl shooter would not work. any ideas?

 

MY fault plodr, I did not explain myself well. When I installed IE8 it automatically eliminated IE6.

 

JUst tried to start IE8. It ran forver would not load then a blue screen with this: "a problem has been detected. Windws has shut down to prevent damage to your computer. Then some stuff a bout restarting in safe mode. Then this:"0X0000008E, 0XF50CBB44,0XF50B6B7B, 0X00000000" I have no idea what that means but it does not llok good.

 

Boot your PC back up again and look in in the folder c:\Windows\minidumps. There should bew at least one file in there. Attach the file to your post and I will debug it for you.

I have seen that error code a number of times and it can be anything from software to hardware. At the minute I suspect you have a dieing piece of hardware but Im not sure which.

 

I believe you can uninstall IE... Or at least on XP. It is just a windows componenet so if you co to Add Remove Programs > Windows Installed components and uncheck Internet Explorer it will uninstall it. Make sure you have another browser installed before trying though or you will loose your ability to connect to the internet

 

Tueur: I already restarted the computer. I restarted again and looked in minidump and ther was nothing there. If it happens again I will check minidump.

 

This I didn't know.