PC Overheating Question

[DekeHead]

I have a 3 or 4 year-old system that has suddenly starting running very hot. The system is running on:

P4 3.0 GHz
Abit IS7-G ("newest" BIOS)
Radeon 9800
2 X Maxtor SATA drives
2 X DVD drives
450 Antec Power TruePower Supply

Now soon after boot, the temps (using Winbond Hardware Doctor) start climbing siginificantly. The CPU has always run a little hot and could climb near 60 C, but the System temp and PS temps have gone from around 38C to near 50C. And they rise pretty darned quickly, too. No changes to the system. It's in the same spot with good airflow and in an A/C-controlled room.

Any ideas why temps could be rising so drammatically? Could a crapping out PS be the cause?

 

[c1001]

Check the fans and make sure they are all working: CPU fan, video card fan, PSU fan and case fans.

 

[DekeHead]

Thanks for the response. All of the fans appear to be functioning. The main heat seems to be coming from the area of the power supply. The exhaust fan doesn't seem to be turing terribly strong, but it's hard to tell. If I place my hand on the case, it definitely feels warmest there.

 

[c1001]

Thanks for the response. All of the fans appear to be functioning. The main heat seems to be coming from the area of the power supply. The exhaust fan doesn't seem to be turing terribly strong, but it's hard to tell. If I place my hand on the case, it definitely feels warmest there.

Is there a chipset fan? Is the intake fan for the PSU spinning? I

t's normal for a PSU to feel the warmest, esp if it is top mounted. If you haven't made any recent changes to your settings (to include overclocking), started using a new temperature probe/program, or swapped out components, then a ventilation issue is becomes the main culprit. Open the case and check for dead mice dustballs. Let me know when you figure this out.

 

[DekeHead]

I opened up my box last night and cleaned out the dust bunnies. It wasn't that bad inside although there was some dust build-up in the fins of my heatsink. Cleaned out the fan filters, too. All fans were turning upon power-up.

I noticed that one of the "hoops" holding my chipset cooler on had disappered. The same thing happened to another box of mine using the Abit IS7 board series. It looks like the three-point attachment is working well-enough to keep good contact between the NB chip and heatsink, but I suppose I could always use some thermal epoxy on it(?).

One thing I did notice, when temps reached 50C, my heatsink (thermalright SLK-900) did not feel warm at all. I used the original formulation of Nanotherm's PCM+ on it, and it has seemed fine. I wonder if I need to pop off the heatsink, clean it with Goof-off, and put some Artic Silver on it instead? Does anyone know how well the PCM+ cleans up? Thought?

Thanks for the help!