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Basically. And a new case, since the inside of the other one suffered a bit.

I think it may've needed new RAM and a new graphics card, as well. I started to zone out a little as the list of components was rattled off, but I've got it written down somewhere.

The fan'd broken down and the inside of the case'd basically cooked. Hence the data recovery problem.

So, an actual new computer.
I installed an extra (large) fan in mine, on top of the motherboard, graphics card and power supply ones. It certainly seems to help things along.

Well, any extra bit of cooling helps.

Generally if you can, a 120mm fan is the way to go. It passes more air than an 80mm but won't get as noisy as a 140mm...which are just massive in all truth.

Just remember to put it in the right location to aid in air flow. In at the front and left and side and out at the top and back.



In all truth you do not need to worry about your PC catching on fire, it is a definite rarety and will only happen if you let your computer overheat to an extreme where components melt and then catch on fire. Most PC's will give up the ghost beforehand and just plop.

Besides, adequate cooling in a case and the BIOS set to thermal shutdown at about 60 for an AMD chip and 70-80 for an Intel Chip would be just fine. (Bearing in mind this doesn't account for 64bit chips or the dual or quad core processors that are coming out.

As for your wireless, I am glad it is working now for you. What did you actually get, I know in your LJ you said it was a Belkin?

Please accept due apologies for not explaining it.

A normal shut down would be you switching off your machine in Windows via the shutdown command in the start menu or by a forced shutdown. It can also be a shutdown via a network of a remote machine, but in either case its a shutdown which is planned and not unexpected.

The BIOS can be set to shut down a computer for safety reasons and will do so automatically if one of these conditions is met.

Most motherboards will have a temperature sensor sitting underneath the CPU itself. You've probably never seen one before, but they're there and they are as close a damned to monitoring a CPU's actual core temperature.

In the computers BIOS you can set a temperature level where, if this thermometer breaches, it will force shutdown your machine. You won't have much control over this shutdown, it's a fail safe. Think of it as a "Your machine could catch on fire -- switch off now"

Being that the fan which sits on the heat sink over the CPU is quite frankly the most important fan in your PC, the BIOS can also be set to monitor this fan as well. The fan plugs into the motherboard and the BIOS will have a direct feed as to whether it is active and spinning or not.
If this fan fails, there is nothing to cool the heatsink thusly free up cooler air onto the CPU itself. This is essentially going to cause your CPU to overheat, possibly exploder or catch on fire.
Thus, the BIOS, if it detects this fan has "failed" (stopped working) it will shut down your PC.

As these shutdowns are at a computer level and not the user level (Windows), you don't have the luxury of the option. It's either shut down or melt down so to speak.


...and for the record, I have operated an AMD cpu without a heatsink on it and it didnt smell particually good.

...and that was after 2 seconds...

I've tried entering myself a few times, but nerver made it into the top 100.
Like yours, though ^^

Thanks, guys. smile

I'm actually surprised that you haven't made it, Xag - some of your designs're incredibly original. Mine's just a standard angel with a few extras.

Well, I've done my bit and voted 10 for both of you so far, so that's raised the chances by 0.0001%. smile