I already posted one article about how our nice new fast computers don’t stay fast, but I myself was a victim recently of some serious performance hiccups that led me to investigate deeper causes of what I call “the slow” in my computer. I have learned through personal experience that sometimes the degradation of performance in your computer can be so gradual, that you really don’t notice it until something really goes wrong. Well that really wrong happened to me just recently.
I use my laptop with some DJ software called M-Audio Torq, which is a program that actively streams two audio files at the same time to an audio interface connected to my computer via USB. This requires some pretty significant resources of the computer and the operating system. Without getting into a bunch of technical details about it, let’s just say, everything has to be working well for the software to accomplish this. So, the last few I used the software, I started getting some unexplained audio dropouts, (basically imagine the sound cutting in and out.)
Trying to narrow down the problem, I looked at the CPU in the task manager, the memory, disk fragmentation, and all kinds of stuff, but couldn’t figure out the source of the problem. Finally, I downloaded HWMonitor from CPUID.com, and found the source of my problem. Heat!
My dropouts started occuring because my CPU started reaching 100 degrees Celsius. The computer is not soo stupid, when the processor starts getting too hot, the system reduces the processors clock rate in order to protect it from overheating damage. Under normal circumstances, it would just be a case where, as the computer got older, it would just seem to not be as snappy as it once was. Most probably wouldn’t even notice enough to care. For me, however, the dropouts could make me look like a total idiot in public since I have gigs lined up where dropouts would be a show stopper.
So what did I do? Well, what any smart computer technician would do. I decided to try to improve the cooling. So early this afternoon I began the arduous task of disassembling my computer with the intent to upgrade the thermal paste between the my CPU and heatsink. instead, I found the cause of the problem was at the fan. See pictures below.
So in my computer, there’s a heat pipe, which has a heat sink full of metal fins, which this pictured fan blows air across, to keep the processor cool. There was so much dust, lint, and probably pet fur, (I have 4 cats,) in the fan that it was literally plugged. Once I took it out, and put my computer back together, my AMD processor never went above 75 degrees under heavy load. Bye bye audio dropouts! Hello performance! I probably just added about 1½-2 years of life to my computer by doing this. I strongly recommend that you do NOT attempt this type of service yourself if your computer is under warranty still, or if you aren’t expert at computer service and repair.
My name is Trenton Knew, owner and chief technician of The Computer Caretaker. I have been proudly serving the greater St. Louis and St. Charles areas with computer repair, maintenance, installation, upgrades, virus removal, spyware and malware removal since January 2009. I would like nothing more than to serve you for all of your computer needs. Experience The Computer Caretaker difference TODAY! 
I’m not expert, but my comp is no longer under warranty, and I’ve done this.
Tell you another problem tho. Those liquid cooling systems? Why does the base sit right on the motherboard with no reliable way to disperse the heat except downwards and ACROSS the motherboard? I blew like 2 components cause of this thing. I was super pissed.
I don’t believe the liquid cooling is supposed to be underneath the components… most systems I’ve seen usually have a heat sink that sits on top of the CPU, Northbridge, and sometimes the GPU with a radiator where the case fan normally sits. that is, unless you’re talking about a laptop with liquid cooling, which admittedly, I have never seen before.
You’ll find this in dusty environments. Hard to find unless you take the exact approach that it seems like you took. I had this issue with a bunch of toshiba notebooks used by a construction company, and even more with the laptops and desktops used in the file room of the mortgage company I used to work for. Good find Trent.
I’m still wondering if I should have hit the processor with a little Arctic Silver while I had the machine open. Oh well, still much quieter now that it was.