At one point or another, you may have had the misfortune of enduring heating issues with a computer you own, be it a desktop or a laptop. Overheating is a widespread problem in the world of computing that plagues many of us, and it varies widely in extremity. Your computer could be running slightly hotter than it ideally should, presenting a passive fire hazard, or it could begin to heat up so much that it is forced to cease functioning and power down. Regardless, it is always preventable. Below is a comprehensive list outlining the most common causes for overheating, each followed by general solutions.
Cause #1: Dust buildup
Let’s face it: cleaning your workhorse of a computer can be a pain in the neck. Though it’s annoying sometimes, you’re going to have to set some time aside every now and then to spruce up your machine.
Dust accumulates both inside and outside of your computer over time. You’ll find it coating your fans (and slowing them down), sitting on your motherboard, clogging ventilation holes in your case, and just about everywhere else. Depending on where you live, considerable amounts of dust can build up over many months, or even as often as a few weeks.
Dust buildup is unavoidable, but you can stop this inevitable occurrence from causing any damage simply by buying some compressed air, opening up the side (or bottom, if you’re cleaning a laptop) of your computer, and spraying the dust away directly. Try to get every spot, even the hard-to-reach ones. If you do this consistently, you won’t ever have to worry about dust buildup affecting your computer’s performance.
Cause #2: Poor ventilation
Having bad airflow is one surefire way to overheat your computer quickly. Ventilation is an extremely important part of a computer’s build process, and if done incorrectly, can lead to serious heating problems.
At the very least, you should have one fan blowing cool air in and one fan blowing hot air out. It is generally a good idea to have more intake fans, however. A common setup is to have two intake fans on the front and side and one large “exhaust” fan in the back. Make sure the intake fans are blowing air on commonly-hot components of your machine, such as your CPU and graphics card. If, for whatever reason, you only have one fan to use, have it blow hot air out of your case.
Cause #3: Bad location
Placing a computer next to a fireplace is not the best idea. This is obvious, but computers are often placed in hot (or heat-prone) locations. One popular such location is the corner of a room. This can certainly be space-efficient, but it’s not ventilation-friendly at all! By keeping a computer in the corner, you are trapping released hot air close to the computer and not giving it sufficient space to disperse throughout the entire room safely. Another common mistake is keeping a laptop on a heat-absorbing surface for long periods of time, such as a blanket. Allowing hot air to dissipate is one of the most important measures you can take to prevent overheating.
Cause #4: Failing PC cooling
Computers don’t last forever. All hardware stops working after an amount of time that depends on its build quality and how you treat it, and cooling equipment is no exception. Eventually, your cooling hardware will begin to fail, and replacing it should immediately become your top priority. Your fans, your CPU’s heat sink, and the thermal compound between your CPU and its heat sink are all extremely important components, and if any of them fail (especially the latter two), you should refrain from even powering your computer on until you get them replaced.
By practicing the solutions outlined above and monitoring your computer’s heat regularly, you can prevent nearly all dangers associated with overheating, such as permanent damage to hardware and fire hazards, for years to come.
