High GPU/CPU Temps? Dust is your enemy!

[«Q§»Tü¢Çî]

I built my PC a few years ago from scratch, and thought I took good care of it, AMD 3500+ CPU, GeForce 6800gt 256mb Video Card, Zalman Heatsink on the CPU, 2gb RAM, 3x 120mm fans throughout, and 1x 80mm on the top of a Coolermaster CMStacker full tower, so you would think it would be well cooled, but it turns out it wasn't, well not the GPU anyways. For years, games were running sort of sluggish, and I had no idea why, for at the time, my rig was pretty top of the line. Well it turns out, after running some programs to monitor the temperature of different components in my PC, my video card was running at 80c+ idle and 101c+ under load! I couldn't believe it even survived for so long under those temps, so I opened up my video card...and there was a DAM of dust all around the fan and heatsink....i removed it all, along with the rest of the dust inside my whole tower...my video card runs 48c idle and not over 65 under heavy load....my framerates jumped up like you WOULD NOT BELIEVE. So bottom line. CLEAN OUT DUST!! DUST IS THE ENEMY!

[`SNΞΔKY_[QS]]

damn tucci...you got everything but central air conditioning for that setup lol but yes, i will be scoping out my fans and shit, and doin a little house cleaning too....thanks for the helpful info.

[«Q§»Tü¢Çî]

haha dude I actually have this idea of putting a window a/c in the side of my PC, but condensation might be a problem, i looked it up online and other people have actually done it so it isn't an original idea but a lot of the time it cools better than liquid cooling, so i might try it...my pc is way outdated now though lol dual core cpu's and PCI-E just came out like a few months after i built my rig.