*sigh* my main desktop’s heat issues have caused it to shut itself down during …

*sigh* my main desktop’s heat issues have caused it to shut itself down during akmod compiling twice now.

I think I’ve reached the limits of replacing thermal paste and adding fans.

Probably time to bite the bullet and upgrade to a newer cpu/mobo combo that can either handle the higher temperatures or produce less heat under the same load. It makes more sense than water-cooling a (checks release date) 10-year-old CPU.

On Wandering.shop

Followup the next day after Rimu pointed out that something’s got to actually be *wrong* with the hardware for this to happen.

You’re absolutely right!

Your reply inspired me to try one more time to check the fans — and this time I noticed that the CPU fan didn’t seem to be drawing as much air as I’d expect.

I’ve always cleaned the outside of the heat sink. But the INSIDE was completely clogged with dust!

It took a while to clear it out, but now the box is humming along at temperatures in the solid *middle* of the range doing things that had made it spike up to well above max before! #

For future reference: I removed the CPU heat sink and fan, and fired bursts of compressed air through the sides until I could see through it clearly from either side and looking through the fan. #

Been stress testing it by running multiple BOINC tasks while simultaneously updating all the steam games on the Linux box and Windows in a VM, with Gmail, Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pinafore and OpenStreetMap tabs (plus others) open in Firefox, and it’s…just working. Like I’d expect it to.

Yay for compressed air and finally looking in the right spot! #