Wondering about my computer...

[Tango589]

Can anyone give an explanation as to why when I put my computer into 'sleep' mode and wake it up again, does the graphics card fan constantly spin and make a loud whirring sound that gets on my t*ts? I have just had a look and the fan is spinning fine, it is not jammed at all. BTW it is a BFGTech Nvidia 7950 GT card.

Also, the inside of my unit is quite dusty. Is it OK just to stick the hoover nozzle with the small brush attatchment in there, or could this lead to strife?

Cheers for any help.

Tango589

[Kapitan_Phillips]

I wouldnt recommend the Dyson method. Just incase, use your own lungs. Blow the dust off the components and then vacuum it off the bottom of the case.

[Blacklight]

Those little fans on the graphics cards DO go on occasion. Usually, the buzzing means that it got unbalanced (Usually because of dust). By the time it starts making noise, there's not much an easy way to stop it other than get a new fan (which usually costs about half the price of a new graphics card for some reason).

As for cleaning the inside of the computer, don't use the brush attatchment. Make sure your computer is unplugged. Just use the hose itself. Don't touch the board or components directly. Just hold the hose close enough so that it sucks the dust. Another good method is to use some caned air to blow dust out of hard to reach spots and then vaccuming as it's coming out (DON'T HOLD THE CAN UPSIDE DOWN AND KEEP THE LITTLE STRAW A BIT AWAY FROM THE COMPONENTS) When doing fans, hold one of the blades with your finger and suck all around it or used the canned air but like I said.. hold the blades(Otherwise, the suction can actually spin the fan so fast that it can be damaged). Pull out that graphics card and you can do the same directly to the card itself. The fan probably has a cap on it and you can probably pop that off with a couple of little screws. Look around the fan's axel and see if you can see any dust wrapped around it. This stuff, you can pull out with tiny tweesers. Once again, if you vacume, be sure to hold the fan blades in place.

If this doesn't fix it, like I said, you can either buy a new fan for the card (Usually half the price of a new graphics card) or just buy a new card.

[Tango589]

Cheers for the cleaning tips, I will get a can of compressed air and use that. As for the noisy fan, I restarted my computer and the graphics card fan is spinning normally and is as quiet as a mouse. It only makes an audible noise when I wake the unit up again. Maybe the fan is running at an increased speed?

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Cheers for the cleaning tips, I will get a can of compressed air and use that. As for the noisy fan, I restarted my computer and the graphics card fan is spinning normally and is as quiet as a mouse. It only makes an audible noise when I wake the unit up again. Maybe the fan is running at an increased speed?

It might be because the card doesnt shut down completely because you're making the computer sleep. When you wake the PC up, it might act as if you're booting from a turned off state and go into hyperdrive

[SUBMAN1]

Because it doesn't re-initialize the drivers properly.

A little tidbit - don't use sleep or hibernation. I've seen it corrupt PC's so bad that they are unrecoverable without reloading the whole OS.

-S

[Tango589]

Subman, the advice is taken. Cheers for the heads up!

[sonar732]

At one of the shops that I worked at, we used an air compressor with spray nozzle attachment. Most of the canned air that you get is cheap crap and won't blow dust off a newly pledge dusted wood furniture.

I also agree about the sleep mode. Just shut off the computer if you don't use it for a while or just the monitor to protect from "burn in". Usually you have to reboot the computer after those two modes anyway because it takes a while after the intial wake up for the computer to go...Oh...now you want to use me...you'll have to wait for my programs to realize it also.

[Peto]

Because it doesn't re-initialize the drivers properly.

A little tidbit - don't use sleep or hibernation. I've seen it corrupt PC's so bad that they are unrecoverable without reloading the whole OS.

-S

Bingo. I'd bet that's the main thing that's heppening here. I'm not a fan of using sleep or hibernate modes either. They can result in all kinds of funky behavior.

All the other cleaning tips mentioned are also good. Especially Blacklight's advice on holding fan blades still while cleaning them.

[TarJak]

I almost never turn off my rig unless I'm going away for a few days. Otherwise I just switch off the monitor. Sleep or hibernation modes are a WOFTAM.