Alarm sounding on PC

[Steven W]

Something strange is going on.

An alarm sounds from my PC, but only over the past couple of days, since I started capturing HD footage and then converting M2TS files into MPG.

It seems to come on during the conversion process. Anyone know what tests I should carry out to discover the problem?

It turns off as soon as the converting finishes and then occasionally turns on again when uploading. PC has still been running fine, so far!

What troubleshooting should I do?

[GoNz0]

something like aida64 will let you monitor all possible sensors on board, you can also check in the BIOS whats got an alarm on it and disable to find the culprit

grab this and run it, click computer> sensors to see whats hot. http://www.aida64.com/downloads/aida...1oq1xi5ergvzip

[Steven W]

something like aida64 will let you monitor all possible sensors on board, you can also check in the BIOS whats got an alarm on it and disable to find the culprit

grab this and run it, click computer> sensors to see whats hot. http://www.aida64.com/downloads/aida...1oq1xi5ergvzip

I'll try that out thanks. Checked my temp, CPU is 71 and System is 36. I guess 71 is quite high. The Fan has an alarm but only at 80, which I don't think it's hit.

[GoNz0]

might be time to clean out the dust bunnies

[Steven W]

I'll try that out thanks. Checked my temp, CPU is 71 and System is 36. I guess 71 is quite high. The Fan has an alarm but only at 80, which I don't think it's hit.

Hottest thing seems the GPU Diode 75 °C (167 °F)

[Steven W]

I run an nvidia geforce 9800gt.I guess I need better cooling, a new fan?

I thought temperatures on the GPU go up much higher though, so surely that wouldn't be the cause of the alarm?

[GoNz0]

video cards just throttle back, the sounders normally the motherboard, try prime95 or intel burn test and if it sets off the cpu alarm you have your answer.

[Steven W]

video cards just throttle back, the sounders normally the motherboard, try prime95 or intel burn test and if it sets off the cpu alarm you have your answer.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

[Steven W]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

On second thoughts, slightly concerned it might cause further probs.That testing looks intense!

[GoNz0]

trust me its no more intense then encoding video, stick to prime95 as intel burn test is the harder of the 2

[Steven W]

trust me its no more intense then encoding video, stick to prime95 as intel burn test is the harder of the 2

Tried it, thanks.

The alarm went off when the CPU hit 80 degrees. Guess I need to clean up, but could do with a new fan to help cool?

[GoNz0]

depends really, often you will find so much fluff between the fan and heatsink its turned into a carpet, unless its the crappy heatsink+fan that comes with a pre built or with the CPU when you brought it then it may explain why.

worth removing the fan 1st and cleaning it, after that consider an after market cooler or even treat yourself to the corsair all in 1 water cooled units if you will be a doing a lot of encoding as that toasts anything.

[Terbinator]

Full spec run-down please.

[Steven W]

3G RAM
Storage – 300GB
CPU Type DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2700 MHz (13.5 x 200) 5200+
Motherboard Name Abit AN52V (3 PCI, 2 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (1024 MB)
PSU
Operating system – XP

[Legthigh]

What CPU cooler are you using?, Is it up to the job? Properly fitted? Clean? good quality Thermal Paste?

[watercooled]

A friend has an old P4-HT system and the (very loud) CPU fan was running flat-out and the sytem was running slowly, probably as a result of CPU throttling. No alarms sounding but probably only because there were none to sound - the temp in BIOS was way above the spec max. Cleaning the dust made a bit of difference but the problem turned out to be the TIM - I removed the heatsink and I think the TIM had swelled or something, there was a big slab of it on there. Cleaning it of and applying some MX2 sorted it.
Interesting little story - but also check TIM as Legthigh said.