Daiajo Tibdixious <[email protected]> posted [email protected], excerpted below, on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:14:55 +1100:
> I opened up the case to clean it & found the case fan was very dusty, > almost blocked. Everything else didn't look to bad. However I took the > CPU fan off & found that while the fan wasn't too bad, the heat sink > itself was chocked with dust. > > After cleaning & reassembling I found that the case fan was back to > front (sucking air INTO the box) & has been like that since I built the > computer, so that hasn't been helping. > > I also noticed the graphics card fan would try to start but soon stop. I > took the card out, dismantled the fan & also found its heat sink very > dusty. After cleaning & reassembling it was still dead. > > My theory is that the graphics card fan has been starting, but running > at low efficiency due to dust. Once the graphics CPU is exercised enough > to heat it up beyond the fans ability to cool, it would shutdown/lockup, > hanging X. Yeah, that could do it... > In retrospect I should have investigated the 'blank screen on hot days' > problem more deeply, then I might not have had this problem. > > I'm currently using the mother board graphics, have 2 firefox sessions > under X for more than 2 hours, with no problems. Cool. (Literally. =:^) > On the bright side, my card hasn't been sufficient to do all my graphics > requirements & I've been thinking of upgrading for a while. Mine isn't all that great either, and I'm looking at upgrading, but the problem is that there's still a dearth of cards with /good/ freedomware drivers. While ATI/Radeon has been quite cooperative with Linux since shortly after AMD took them over, that's been a relatively short period and altho the drivers are developing at almost dizzying speed, they really aren't mature yet, so the R2xx series while old still has the best stable/mature/fully-featured freedomware drivers out there. nVidia's still a lost cause for anyone like me who won't take slaveryware for a viable answer, and Intel... is integrated-Intel-chipset only, which leaves AMD and no-on-board-graphics people out in the cold. Via... is I think honestly trying now, or they'd not have snagged Herald Welte, but AFAIK they're at least six months behind AMD/ATI, and are generally either integrated only or considered low end. That doesn't leave a lot of (read no) choice for folks wanting upgrades with mature freedomware driver support. The best alternative would appear to be something from ATI/Radeon, but it'll be roughly the second half of the year at minimum, before anything post R2xx series has mature drivers. The current versions are getting there, but there's still features missing, and what's there isn't all mature and stable. None-the-less, I've been thinking I'll join the xorg list (I've been interested in it for awhile, just haven't gotten the appropriate round tuit), and ask their opinion on what looks best, R300-R700, still AGP here. For me, dual dual-link DVI is the preferred output. The budget is about $200, and as long as it works relatively well now, it doesn't need to be fully featured and stable initially... We'll see what they say. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
