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Shut down due to thermal event?

My 4 years old Dell dimension started to shut itself down due to thermal events about a year ago. The fans are working and I clean the air intake regularly. It did not happen again for a while but about a few months ago these events became regular. Now they are occuring everytime I run the computer for 2 or 3 hours, sometimes even less. I read about fixing the heat sink but I am no expert in technical matters and I do not want to open the case and make the computer totally unusable. Any ideas on how to fix this issue?

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Open up the case and spray the fans with air duster (MAKE SURE TO HOLD THE FANS OR ELSE THEY WILL OVERSPIN AND BREAK). Your "cleaning the air intake" is only clogging up further dust inside the case. Make sure to spray some air duster on the CPU heatsink (that big protruding fan in the upper left-ish part of your motherboard.

    The thermal paste shouldn't be a problem if it's been working all these years. Although it could be crusting up so use ArctiClean and remove the thermal paste from both the heatsink and CPU. Then reapply Arctic Silver 5; just a single BB-sized drop in the center will do.

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