Computer Overheating

Anything electrical produces heat and therefore is at risk of overheating, computers are no exception as by design their components such as CPU, video cards and motherboards, etc produce a lot of heat. Electricity is converted into heat which is known as the Joule Effect.

What are the side-effects?

• The heat can damage your PCs components such as its motherboard, sound card, etc. It can damage these components so severely they become paper weights and depending on the critical nature of the component your computer may not work anymore as a result.
• It can cause injury as the computer casing can become so hot it can burn your skin if you touch it.
• Computer overheating can also slow the computer down.

What causes the system to overheat?

Operating the computer for extended periods of time at high operational capacity – a computer is similar to an athlete in that way – imagine if a runner was to run as fast as they can for a long period of time, eventually they would get very hot and eventually fail unless they reduce the speed at which they were running – the same principle applies to computers. So activities like playing games or running lots of programs at once can cause stress on the computer that can cause overheating if you don’t have adequate cooling technologies installed in your computer.

Environmental factors come into play as well – if you’re in a cool environment the computer is less likely to overheat.

Insufficient airflow around your system – it’s important that air can move around and through your PC. If you have a desktop computer and the tower is hidden away in an enclosed space – that can reduce airflow and cause heat build-up.

Inside computers are fans and other cooling devices – if they stop working your system will heat up very quickly.

If a fan stops working, your computer will over heat very quickly. If this happens and you are sure it is the fan, turn off your computer until you can get a replacement fan. Many times the fan will become loud before it stops working.

Symptoms of a computer overheating

• Computer is hot to touch
• Smoke coming from computer
• Uncommon noise coming from the computer (especially if sounds like a fan whining)
• Blue screen of death or computer abruptly shutting down could be related to the system overheating as 2 things could be happening:
  • The computer detects the severe temperature which could seriously harm your computer and initializes the fail safes (which are on most modern computers) to kick-in and shut the computer down.
  • The components like CPU/Motherboard could become so hot they can no longer function and the computer crashes.

What you can do to stop your computer from overheating.

• Heat sensors are generally installed on various components inside your computer, so be aware of your computers heat – you can get this information using the BIOS, or better yet download a 3rd party application like Real Temp so you can monitor the temperature from the comfort of windows.
• If you use a laptop you can purchase a laptop cooler which is a laptop rest with fans attached to the bottom.
• Reduce the environmental temperature – such as moving the computer away from the fireplace or turning on the air conditioner.
• Ensure all fans in your PC are clean and running properly.
• If you’re not using the computer turn it off – it can’t build up heat if it’s off.
• Add additional cooling systems like heatsinks and more/bigger internal fans.
• Dust and dirt build up inside the computer can cause the computer to overheat – use compressed air to remove this dirt and dust.
• If you are in warranty you can contact the manufacturer to repair, if you are out of warranty you can contact a local computer tech or your manufacturer but expect to pay a repair cost.