Computer Fan Question

[SIRCOOKS]

Good Night,

I have a weird problem with two of my PC's. Every so often i would be working on it, and at a certain point the fan would just increase in speed and sound. Can anyone explain what this might be linked to? I would maybe have two browsers open and a movie playing in wmp on one, the other i just really have a lot of web sites open in tabs. Can i be overworking the cpu? Can the processor need some more compound between it and the fan? Do i need a fresh install? or do i need to replace the fan or is there a setting i can reduce or increase. Hope someone can help me real soon.

Regards,

[deadrats]

i forget what the feature is called but this is normal with some motherboards and cpu settings. basically there are two bios settings that control the clock speed of your cpu and the fan speed of the cpu cooler, at idle both the cpu and the cooler fan are at their lowest settings and your pc is nice and quiet. if you put a load on the cpu, like playing a video file or having many tabs open, the bios ramps up the clock speed of the cpu and since the cpu is now running hotter the thermal sensor tells it to also ramp up the speed of the fan. the speed of the fan is tied to the temperature of the cpu and the temperature of the cpu is tied to the clock speed it's running at.

i'm guessing you are using the stock cooler and fan, those are never sufficient for the cpu they're bundled with and you always have this effect, that's why i stopped using stock cooler years ago and now just buy a decent aftermarket cooler that i can reuse with newer cpu's, something like a scythe or a zalman.

honestly, a good aftermarket cooler is probably one of the best investments you can ever make, as you can usually keep reusing the better ones with most new sockets that come out; i had a thermaltake that i was able to use from a dual core fx all the way to a hexa core x6 and the scythe i currently use has brackets for both amd and intel setups.

[SIRCOOKS]

Is there some type of setting i can adjust in the bios to rectify this in the short term...aka tonight??????/

[Noahtuck]

Anything would just be a guess....

You say you are playing a movie when this happens.
It could be your video card fan on top of your CPU fan increasing in order to keep them cool as playing videos, like games, will generate more heat which in turn requires the fans to run faster/louder in order to cool them.

Reducing the fan speed in these cases will just cause overheating and shorten the lifespan or how well the system runs, HEAT KILLS!!!!
You could just unplug the fans & then there will be no noise what so ever!!!
LOL!!!

But seeing as no one has any clue as to what your system is or what exactly you are doing, specifically, with great detail,
Any guess is as good as another.......

[redwudz]

Try running a monitoring program like HW Monitor: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html It should tell you your CPU and other temps and probably your fan speeds.

Depending on your PC, fan speeds can be set and regulated in BIOS. But some motherboards also have a add-on fan program that can affect fan speed.

The main problem is if your CPU or the rest of your PC is running very hot, you don't want to lower the fan speed and cause a shutdown from overheat.

[sanlyn]

Much depends on the specific PC. Many retail PC's from Dell, HP, etc., tend to have a single dual-purpose cooling fan rather than a case fan and a CPU fan separate. The single fan design blows air out of the back of the case and pulls air in from front or side vents; a plastic duct uses the force of the fan's pull to direct the incoming air over the CPU and heat sinks, and the main fan continues pulling that air over the CPU and out the back of the case. Most of these one-fan designs are specific for the case and CPU involved. They are not the same guys you see being sold in computer shops. Some DELL PC designs use a fan that requires direct replacement; try to plug a different fan in there and the connectors don't match the circuit, so the Dell PC detects an error and won't boot.

The better retail PC's have separate case coolers and CPU coolers. Separate fans are obviously the better choice, depending on how they're implemented.

[Nelson37]

Fan speed is related to heat. Fan noise is related to fan speed. Excess heat is related to PC failure.

The fans are running faster, and noisier, because THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO.

Temperature limits and fan RPM are sometimes user-changeable, but most users should not be doing this. If you don't already have a grasp on the first three items, you are definitely in this category.

Better cooling and airflow, or perhaps liquid cooling, is the way to handle this. Blowing the dust out might solve it, in fact, a thorough cleaning of heat-sink and fan blades is almost certain to at least help a bit.

Re-installing heatsink and paste is usually not the solution, unless you did it yourself, in which case it might very well be necessary.

Just re-read and noticed the question about needing MORE paste between CPU and heatsink. DO NOT do this yourself, and if you did these two installs, get somebody to do them correctly before you fry both CPUs.