- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,339
- 10,044
- 126
Friend that I sold a gaming PC to, maybe 3-4 years ago, based on a Dell Sandy Bridge mini-tower chassis and mobo and CPU, added RAM (16GB DDR3), an SSD, a 2TB HDD, and a GTX 1050 2GB (it may have been longer ago).
He told me sometime almost a year ago, that his PC was crashing, and his video card was making weird fan sounds. (He called it "warped fans".) I asked him when the last time that he cleaned his rig out (dust, etc.). He said that he had just cleaned it, and that he cleans it regularly. (OHOOHOHOHOHOHO HAHAHAHA.)
I know him better than that. This happened last time to his old rig too. He doesn't clean it, or at least, doesn't clean the GPUs, he just keeps using them until they fail, from dust accumulation, they cook themselves.
And he has the nerve to complain, that he thought that the GPU should have lasted longer. (Well, DUH guy, you have to clean them regularly, if you live in a dusty environment.)
Then he complains to me, and I fix his PC. I put in a dual-fan EVGA GTX 1650 4GB GDDR6 SC Ultra model, to replace his single-fan ITX Zotac GTX 1050 2GB GDDR5 model (pictured).
I am going to blow the dust out, and see if I can salvage this card somehow. Maybe need to re-lube the bearings, if they didn't get dust in them. (Or perhaps, zip-tie a fan to the cooler.)