My dad's Compaq still hates the summer

Richard_Rahl · 06-28-2009, 01:01 AM

My dad's Compaq Presario of 2001 still hates the summer, nearly as much as it did from the beginning until today. Replacing the old thermal grease for the first time in 8 years made the temps at idle and low load drop from about 40-45C to 36-40 degrees, but the load temps are not yet fine. At a certain moment during a virusscan I did for testing purposes, the temps went to 60 for a second or two and the cpu fan "decided" to go full throttle. This made the cpu temps go down to 50-55C (fortunately), but of course the noise was awful. The environmental temperature is roughly 25-30C at my parents' this weekend, and my dad's pc stands in a computer cabinet. Not quite ideal off course, and what is making it worse is that there is no case fan inside the system.

These are the specs as far as I know them:

(Brandless?) PSU of 235 Watts
Intel Pentium 4 @ 1.5 GHz, socket 478 (Costa Rica)
2x 512 MB Crucial SDRAM (133 MHz, 3.3 volt)
64 MB GeForce 2 MX-400
1 ATA (thus not SATA) HDD
1 ATA DVD-ROM drive
1 ATA CD-RW drive
Cooling: 1 PSU fan and 1 CPU fan

When applying the thermal grease I followed the instructions OCZ gives for it (OCZ Freeze Extreme instructions), so that shouldn't be a part of the problem I think (and as said before, the idle temps seem to have dropped).

So I have 3 questions:

- Will a case fan be a sufficient solution for the heat/noise issues that pc is having during summers?
- Is that PSU able to handle that additional fan in case of a pc with that hardware? I think it is but I'm not completely sure.
- May OCZ be not right about the application and should I have used their instructions for "legacy" (i.e. P3 and earlier) cpus? That does not seem likely to me, but still I would like to know your opinion.

Thanks a lot in advance, in behalf of my father.

KamisoriX · 06-28-2009, 05:21 AM

compaq still exist?

Slaymate · 06-28-2009, 01:55 PM

Take the PC out of the Cabinet!!!

You should be able to add a few fans without any problems.

An aftermarket heatsink would be adviseable

Richard_Rahl · 06-28-2009, 03:09 PM

Taking the pc out of the cabinet is something I am advising already for about 5-6 years. My parents don't listen so far...

I will add a case fan and hope the problem is solved for a major part, for a bigger heatsink there is lack of room I think (it is a mini-tower). And investing relatively much in a 8-year-old system is something my father does not seem to want.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

KamisoriX · 06-28-2009, 03:47 PM

8 years old? it's not worth doing anything to it. you are better of with a new 300 bucks PC

Akherousin · 06-28-2009, 04:05 PM

The processor is fine up until 73°C. However it's advisable to add an intake fan in the front if the case allows it.

Richard_Rahl · 06-28-2009, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akherousin

The processor is fine up until 73°C. However it's advisable to add an intake fan in the front if the case allows it.

I know it is fine until 73C, but the noise is so awful. The case does not allow a front intake fan, but it has room for an outblowing rear fan (which it has not at the moment).

Gazz · 06-28-2009, 09:17 PM

The acoustics of Compaq Presario are bad these days and back in 2001 they were awful. Stop wasting time on it, remove the power outlet of the fan on top of you cpu and get your parents to buy a new pc (if they are the kind of people that can easily afford one that is). They will never figure it out anyway and youll be doing them a favour anyway.

Edit: I said anyway twice in one sentence. I rule!

Princ3ss · 07-07-2009, 03:53 PM

ok heres 2 things i can tell you with just reading the first few words from your post and i think someone else has said this too .. #1 its from 2001 why even bother trying to fix it unless you just wanna learn a lil something about computers... #2 and the most important ITS A COMPAQ

*!!! its a 10 pound paperweight since day one! tell your parents to go with a dell (my personal opinion) and if you want rip out the old hard drive and stick it in there new comp.(as a second hard drive) so they dont lose all there files n stuff

* I hate all compaqs,hp (yes i know there the same company now),gateways and Emachines lolz

Richard_Rahl · 07-07-2009, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princ3ss

ok heres 2 things i can tell you with just reading the first few words from your post and i think someone else has said this too .. #1 its from 2001 why even bother trying to fix it unless you just wanna learn a lil something about computers... #2 and the most important ITS A COMPAQ

*!!! its a 10 pound paperweight since day one! tell your parents to go with a dell (my personal opinion) and if you want rip out the old hard drive and stick it in there new comp.(as a second hard drive) so they dont lose all there files n stuff

* I hate all compaqs,hp (yes i know there the same company now),gateways and Emachines lolz

Adding a fan helped a bit.