For the past few months, the Intel CPU fan inside my Pentium 4 system has been whirring quite loudly whenever I launch programs and do stuff. I shrugged and ignored it, because I had taken off the cover of my system and cleaned/vacuumed the insides in the past. The whirring noise still persisted, however.
So, seeing that I had some extra time today, I dismantled the CPU fan and heatsink (caution: don’t do this if you’re not familiar with the hardware, get a techie to do it for you). Lo and behold, the thermal paste which came with the original heatsink had pretty much disappeared (it has been two and a half years since I first assembled my system). Furthermore, the area around the vicinity of the processor was covered with a fine layer of dust (dang, I should have taken a picture before cleaning it). So using an old paint brush and a vacuum cleaner (again, don’t do this yourself if you don’t know how) I cleaned the processor vicinity up.
Fixed back the CPU and heatsink after applying a new coat of Thermaltake grease on the processor. Checked to make sure everything was in order, and booted the system. Wow, what a difference. It’s so quiet now. Music to my ears.
