Hello

So my PC has been running for about 5 years now , probably over 15000 hours and still going strong.I've put it through quite a bit of stress through the years (including having it run at borderline temps for longish periods of time) and I'd be really glad if it ran for another 2 years without any issues because I really don't want to spend any money on a new one until then (I'm saving up for other equipment).

What brought this up (and what concerns me the most) is the fact that I've been seeing significantly higher temperatures throughout the system the past year.
My question is: Is there anything that I can renew/upgrade that will improve the efficiency/reliability/extend life of my pc?
Particularly i've been thinking about the buck converter caps near the cpu and perhaps the filter caps in the ATX PSU\. Do you guys think it's a good idea to de-solder some of them and check out their capacitance perhaps or just simply replace them?

Anyone have any other suggestions/ideas?

Thanks in advance

 

Get yourself a can of Air Duster and give the PC a good de-fluff paying particular attention to the CPU cooler and graphics card cooler (if fitted).

New thermal paste on your CPU cooler may help.

 

Get yourself a can of Air Duster and give the PC a good de-fluff paying particular attention to the CPU cooler and graphics card cooler (if fitted).

New thermal paste on your CPU cooler may help.

I've read that for some laptops, when you do that, you must block the fan to avoid the generation of a voltage that could damage, I think is the driving circuit. I do not know with desktops.

If staying on the floor, all my PC's do collect lot of dust.

 

I've already cleaned my pc inside out many times and applied new paste on CPU and GPU ,still no improvement.

 

- Replace any fan that is making noise or appears to be running slow. Replace them with higher CFM models. You can replace a good running fan with a higher output model and gain a cooling advantage.

- Don't fix it, if it ain't broke. I have never seen a power supply damage a motherboard when it failed.

- Temperature measurement by humans is subjective. You might be wrong and your PC is just fine.

- Fans and electrolytic capacitors have the highest failure rate of any component in your PC. Replacing a fan is non-destructive. Soldering on a many layered printed circuit board just to replace a cap before it goes bad is a bad gamble. Again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Mark

 

I have never seen a power supply damage a motherboard when it failed.

Lucky you. I lost a good XP machine just that way the third time the PS went bonkers.

 

Thanks for the answer Les.

Yes I'm thinking of replacing the main CPU cooler fan with a proper beast and getting myself a new case because airflow is not a used concept inside the one I have right now.

Soldering on a many layered printed circuit board just to replace a cap before it goes bad is a bad gamble

That's what i'm afraid of .

Lucky you. I lost a good XP machine just that way the third time the PS went bonkers

I've got a pretty decent and overpowered PSU so I'm not afraid that it will go out on me but i'm itching to replace the filter caps

 

I've got a pretty decent and overpowered PSU so I'm not afraid that it will go out on me but i'm itching to replace the filter caps

So was mine.

I think the more power the more damage when they go.

 

My PC started to get hot and reset itself after a number of years.
I tracked it down to the power supply fan duct being blocked with dust and fluff.
Cleaned it out and that fixed it.