I think I was gone about 20 minutes when I received the phone call that the system had locked up again. Sure enough the temps were alright, the case was steady at about 98 degrees and the CPU had creped up to about 145, still not enough to cause the lockup. On this next visit I decided to install another case fan, the case was so thin at the front between the cover and grill a standard fan would not work and I do not stock the skinny fans. Thus, I added an 80 mm fan at the back of the case. Once Installed the system warmed up to 92 inside the case and 140 for the CPU and no lockup, to add a measure of security, I decided to order a front case fan the blows in from the CD areas.
When walking back to my car I decided to get out and install a new heat sink and fan on the processor. I had used the factory provided one and I have used them for years without any issue. I had one that’s capacity was well above this CPU (it was for an XP 3000+) so I properly cleaned and replaced it.
The next few days were cool and cloudy outside and the system worked fine. The day before the new fan arrived was warm and sunny. Guess what, the computer locked up. I greatly apologized to the end user but was beginning to wonder about the weather. The end users office has one entire wall as a window, floor to ceiling. The back of the case faced the window, however due to the location of the building, the sun at this time was not beating through the window so I decided to rule out that possibility. Continue reading