Do processors loose their processing power?

R

Richard Westcott

Charter Member 2011
I have been having trouble with fps and just reinstalled fs9 (fourth time this year) and leaving it as a farly basic configuration.

I was just wondering wether processors loose their power overtime, my PC is about 4 or 5 years old now and was wondering if it was this that was causing the trouble.

I have an AMD Athlon 64 processor 3500+ 2.21Ghz.

Thanks
 
most likely it's just getting dirty. Clean the fan, the PC box, etc. Both clogged fans and just dust in general will cause a lot of heat buildup....and heat slows down CPUs (and shorten their lives)

-feng
 
Processors are not like Memory sticks. If a processor goes, it goes, while memory can develope bad sectors over time.

But... What a processor needs is proper cooling and that film material between it and the heat sink, (sticky white film that transfers heat from the surface of the chip to the heatsink).

Keeping the heat sink super clean, free of all dust is incredibly important, as the dust buildup shields the sinks from air movement and acts like a blanket, keeping the heat in. Heat is a huge enemy of computer speed. Keeping a computer cool will cause it to run faster.

Kids at universities in the past have found that they can sit a container of liquid nitrogen on a computer chip on a running computer, and the super low temperature will enable a super old chip to run faster then some of the newest chips. Its incredible. (Super conduction).

Second is memory. Your HD might be getting slow, and you may need to run Defrag. Also scan for spyware. That slows down a system.

You can run (install) FS on a second HD, mounted externally or internally, which will also speed up the sim performance slightly, as the regular HD can run computer 'things' on it, while running FS on the other HD.


I hope that helps a bit.

Fengs on it. I was writing this when he wrote that. Heat, the enemy.


Bill
 
Thanks guy's, I was just curious as I do not know much about the workings of a PC (to many numbers and technical words).

I have defragged and cleaned my PC so I will wait and see, when I can afford it I will buy some new memory.

Thanks for the advice.
 
My experience is that FS9 performance can be degraded if there are too many Windows programs or services running in the background.

For example, my virus program is automatically set to update itself. If that runs while I was in FS9, everything turned into a slideshow.

My computer is over 5 years old, and I constantly monitor it for anything that runs in the background. To control that I'm use FSAutoStart to shut unneeded things down when I run FS9, and restart them when I close down FS9.

--WH
 
Richard Westcott said:
Thanks guy's, I was just curious as I do not know much about the workings of a PC (to many numbers and technical words).

I have defragged and cleaned my PC so I will wait and see, when I can afford it I will buy some new memory.

Thanks for the advice.
Click to expand...

You may not need memory sticks if yours are fine. You can run online RAM tests to see how good the sticks are doing. HarleyMan knows the location of online RAM tester software. The tests are free.

Also, if you do get some new RAM, for a few dollars more, you can get cooling jackets that go on them and help to disipate heat better. Hot RAM will also negate performance.



Bill
 
My comp is seven years old and still running it's original cpu (Athlon 2000XP (1.77ghz). I clean it every 2 months or so whether it needs it or not. I'm also running an oversized headsink & fan along with extra case fans to really get the air flowing through the case.
 
I lost my hard drive last night, I was in a panic for a while as it had all my music on there which was not backed up. Re-installing FS9 is not a problem by comparison.

Thankfully it must have been a loose connection as I managed to get it back up and running and spent the rest of my time backing everything up.

Today I was going to give my fans a clean, I have done the main one, but I cannot figure out how to remove the fan on the CPU, the heatsink is clogged right up.

Can anyone offer any advice on how to take the fan off, a picture is attached, my first thought was that the motherboard needs to come out!

Thanks (again)

Richard

CPU.jpg
 
Richard Westcott

To clean your CPU heat sink and fan:

1) Grab a bamboo sish kabob skewer....use the sharped tips to free the dust from the heat sink.

2) One the dust is loose, use a can of compressed electronics cleaner to blow the dust out of the heat sink.....while using the skewer to hold the CPU fan still....never allow the fan to spin in the stream of the compressed cleaner as it will spin the fan beyond its normal RPM range and can damage the fan to the point of failure.

3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 until the heat sink it clean.

4) Use a clean dry tooth brush (a tooth brush sized for small children works best....you can buy cheap ones at Walmart) to brush the dust off the fan blades, video card, sound card, etc. Then use more cleaner to blow the dust off of everything.

5) Use the electronics cleaner to blow the dust out of your USB slots, off your HDs, out of your CD/DVD drives....basically blow the dust off of everything.

6) Allow your system to set for an hour or two to make sure that all fumes and cleaner spray have evaporated and dissipated from your computer.

7) Hook everything back up and give it a go.

___

The above is my monthly cleaning procedure. A couple times a year, I will go beyond this by removing the cards and RAM from the Mother Board and cleaning out the sockets with some electronics cleaner. Dust has the tendency to work itself into the sockets and can cause short circuits..which can damage or kill the cards or mother board.

OBIO
 
When you are doing the above procedures make sure you are properly grounded. One snap of static electricity is all it takes to fry something on the motherboard. After cleaning, make sure all of the plugs and electrical connections are properly inserted and secure.
 
Reading this post reminded me that I hadn't cleaned the inside of my PC for sometime now. Anyway, I removed copious amounts of dust and a cobweb :bump:, never seen a cobweb inside the case before. I also found a couple of old cooling fans which I installed, on in the 'card slots' and one on the ventilation grille, both blowing air out of the case.

I have noticed an increase in noise levels, no surprise there, but the difference in the speed that textures load when flying is incredible.

GET CLEANING, it's a cheap way of improving your system,
 
Richard Westcott said:
Today I was going to give my fans a clean, I have done the main one, but I cannot figure out how to remove the fan on the CPU, the heatsink is clogged right up.

Can anyone offer any advice on how to take the fan off, a picture is attached, my first thought was that the motherboard needs to come out!

Thanks (again)

Richard

CPU.jpg
Click to expand...


The kind of fan your CPU uses is set in by pressure on the pins. Take a sharp blade (a filed flat screwdriver works too) and delicately try making leverage between the plastic of the fan and the heatsink. Change often position to the blade you use to remove the fan evenly on all four sides.

It takes a little patience.

This post has remembered me that on this machine, that is on 24/7/365, it's almost a year I haven't removed seriously any dust. As soon Windows will request reboot, I will stop everything and will clean it inside out. :banghead:


PS
I suggest, in the happening of slowing fans, to remove the adhesive on the center of the back of the fan itself, spray air on the place, then let one, max two drops of sewing-machine oil (or any other very fluid lubricant) on the pivot of the fan itself. It works well into giving old fans a second life.
 
minuteman10 said:
I think that the 4 set screws in the corners should release the fan...now I think that I'll clean out my own!
Click to expand...

If you look better, there are no screws in the pic. The fan casing is jammed in a sort of cage made by 4 plastic pins from below. This kind of situation requires a little patience to extract the fan from its lodging.:wiggle:

Of course, where there are screws, you unscrew them and you're set fast, but it doesn't seem the case, above.:monkies:
 
I use my air compressor...BUT you MUST not let the air pressure spin the fan....



Just blow the heck out of it from all sides...


Watch for moisture too comming from air line...My system has a dryer...
 
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