fan stopped, noticed, cpu works still, am i in the clear?

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
45
91
I have an 1800+ with retail hsf. I was changing some cables around and when I closed the case one of the IDE cables ended up preventing the fan from rotating. I had just finished a long reformat and dual boot installation on both my hard drives, so I didn't check.

Anyway, I had windows xp running at minimal load (just testing it out with pinball) for about oh, 8 to 10 minutes. Then I get a blue screen of death. Tried a soft reboot, nothing. Tried a hard reboot, no post. Then I opened my case and found the problem. I touched the heatsink to gauge how long ago the fan had stopped. I can still see the mark on my finger after 2 days. My cpu usually runs at 45 or so full load since I don't overclock , and that barely feels warm when touching the heatsink, so it must have been close to twice that for a few minutes.

I quick got my huge floorfan and had it blowing into the open case for 5 minutes. when heatsink was pretty cool, restarted and hoped it would post. 2 days later, no problems since running 24/7. I didn't smell any burning scent through this whole ordeal. I guess I got really lucky.

So, did I significantly shorten the life of my cpu? Any long term effects to this type of mistake?

Thanks a lot ahead of time.
 

Doctorweir

Golden Member
Sep 20, 2000
1,689
0
0
I think you'll be ok....the passive cooling prevented an instant "cpu-fry"

After the passive cooling was not enough anymore and the CPU got too hot you got the blue screen...not uncommon for the overclocking community ;)

It may eventually shorten the lifespan of your CPU a bit...maybe from 5 to 4 years...but honestly, when was the whole lifespan of a CPU ever needed?
rolleye.gif