"My CPU was filthy..."

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

The complaint: "I installed a new power supply and now my CPU fan is a lot louder."

The actual issue: "I decided to clean out my computer of all manners of foreign particle while installing a new video card, RAM, and power supply, and while I was at it the CPU's thermal compound looked like an oddly thick clay-textured layer of dirt."

How do you just happen to check in between your CPU and CPU fan just in case it's dirty? Even after years of tier 1 helpdesk support I would have rated this incredibly unlikely.

Comments

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

Oh Joy...

Remove the stuff that sucks out the heat and wonder why the fan has to work harder...

but, again, why would you pull the cpu fan as part of a normal cleanup?

Sounds like the doc that had a dead battery in his Mac... and thought it was the huge cap soldered into the board... so he cut it out.

[jjjiii]

Agreed, regular users checking for dirt inside the PC case IS extremely unlikely.

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

Heck, the chance of regular users doing their own *power supply* swap-out sounds unlikely, to be honest. Not to mention, how can you be computer-savy enough to do that and not enough to know what thermal compound is there for?

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

That's the part that really kills me, yeah.

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

I mean, this story is like someone saying 'I was replacing my transmission but I found all this oil and gunk everywhere, so I drained it all out and cleaned it up...and now my car doesn't want to run...'

[djbp.livejournal.com]

Note the installing new video card, The sales assistant probably sucked their teeth and told the user that they needed a new 800+watt PSU to go with the new card.

[mr-scoot.livejournal.com]

Sounds similar to a client I had -

"I was cleaning out my computer, and that thing with the fins, and the fan? well, I couldn't get it out, so I pried it out with a screwdriver. Now I can't get it back in. Can you help me out?"

Well, sure. 1 CPU and an hour labor later.

Strange, though - that was a few months after we upgraded the RAM & video card, since they were more bang for the buck than a CPU upgrade. Hmm...