Melting...

Oh what a world! Right enough quotes from the land of Oz. Unlike the wicked witch it's not the water that's the problem. It's this infernal heat. It's been the hottest summer in recorded history here and if this keeps up it will also be longest heat wave we've ever had.

Trying to work or study in this kind of weather is downright horrid. All you want to do is sit in a tub with ice cold water and not move. I've had to do a little yard work and help with some other work and it was pure torture. It's really isn't any fun having to dig, carry loads of sand and stones around while the sun is trying it's damndest to turn you into a little pile of ash. But it had to be done so we did it anyway.

In some ways the heat is good for business. You get a lot of computers that can't stand the heat because of bad or insufficient cooling. Of course the downside to all this is that you have MORE work to do. It's a shame so many users do not realize that dust can be the death of their machines. It's amazing how much dust you find in some machines, and ash, breadcrumbs, dried up coffee and who knows what else.

First you want to make sure you have decent airflow through your system, make sure that one end of the case sucks the hot air out while the other pulls it in. Whatever you do do not have fans fight each other.

DO NOT leave the case open. Especially with passive cooling trough heat sinks. This will RUIN the airflow. It also turns your case into a dust magnet.

Spend a little money on a can of compressed air and blow of the dust from your components. It stands to reason you do this while it's turned OFF. Also leave it turned off for a little while after you are done. DO NOT let the spray head touch the components. leave some distance between where the air comes out and what you are cleaning or you mgiht damage things.

NEVER EVER use a nylon brush or anything else to wipe away the dust. Static charges can kill your computer components. DO NOT touch the components. There is no reason what so ever to physically touch them while spraying away the dust. If you have to touch them make sure to ground/discharge yourself first.

Pay the little bit extra for the fans with dust filters. They are your friend. Also make sure that any expansion slots you are not using are closed off with those brackets you got with your case.

Consider adding a fresh layer of (higher quality) cooling paste after a few years. There will be dust getting in there as well.

Spend a little cash on heat spreaders for your memory. These are relatively cheap, easy to install but are well worth the money and effort. We don't want those pretty dual channel PC400 or DDR2/3 modules to die now do we? Just remember: GET RID OF YOUR STATIC CHARGE BEFORE INSTALLING THEM! The best thing to do is wear a wrist strap to ground yourself. But ANY kind of grounding is better than nothing. RAM is the most sensitive bit of equipment in your pc apart from the chipset. so treat it with care. I know a lot of techs in comp stores don't bother with wrist straps anymore but that’s because when they fry something they toss it in a bag and send it back to the factory. YOU CAN"T. If you fry your stuff it is not covered by warranty.

if your pc is having trouble with this heat and you cannot afford to upgrade your cooling clock the system back a bit. There is no major performance loss if you drop the multiplier a step or so but it will drop the CPU temperature. Of course if you're already running an overclocked system it stands to reason you should go back to factory specs.

Turn off any devices you are not actually using. If you have 2 CD/DVD drives disable one for the time being. Only a fool would try on the fly disc copies on a system that is overheating anyway. same goes for that second or third hard disk you are only using for data storage. Just turn them off until you need to access those files or the heat goes down. Better yet move them to external USB/Firewire cases. That's a nice little bit of power saving there too.
Those com ports and quite often the parallel port are probably just idling too. And who still uses that MIDI/Game port on the soundcard? It all saves power and heat. Remember that the less power the system uses the less strain is put on the PSU meaning that it won't get so hot either.

Actively cool any hard drives in your system. They are without a doubt the biggest hot heads you have got apart from you video card and CPU. The ideal solution are 5.25inch bays with fans and a heat sink. If mounted properly you can let your optical drive(s) benefit from the cooling. Be sure to get ones with dust filters.

If you're using a modern CPU be sure you're not using the "always on" power profile, this way you allow it to use the advanced power management features. And while chatting or watching that DVD movie you really won't notice if the CPU steps down to 800Mhz. Apart from the CPU and socket temps dropping rather nicely.

Well that's it for the freebies. Hope it helps.