Concerned-ish

Summer’s here. That season where it gets unbearably hot, insects start swarming around, ants bite your feet while you’re having a barbecue, and your shirt turns yellow from sweat. But more annoying is when you spend money to buy games, and then find out that your computer that was working perfectly yesterday can no longer handle them due to the heat.

Even as I type this, I see patches of sweat evaporating from the keys I just hit – that should give you an indication of how hot it is. But that’s nothing compared to my PC right now. My processor is running at an average of 60-ish degrees Celcius. My GPU at 75. Now the GPU is fine, they can apprantly go up to 140C before it goes “ohnoes” and shuts itself down. CPUs… not so much. The recommended average for these things is 40C. Meaning I’m going far too high.

Now, I’ve not even overclocked this thing, it’s at stock speeds. The cooler is the stock one, granted, but I do have 2 extra fans in there to suck cool air in / blow hot air out. Now, a friend of mine, known only as “Kireas” (I forgot his actual name… oops) has told me to a) Get a new cooler and b) Undervolt/Underclock the CPU. And here lies the problem.

Last time I had an overheating CPU, I did buy a new cooler. But the damage was done – the CPU still crapped out whenever I started doing important stuff anyway. So, I bought the one I have now. If I buy a new cooler – how do I know it’s still not going to happen? I need a new CPU. Which brings us to ANOTHER problem. I’m using an old chipset on my motherboard, 975X. Intel, Socket 775. Now… this chipset only supports up to 1066MHz FSBs. Which they don’t make anymore. Meaning I need a new motherboard and processor. And, most likely, new RAM. Coming to a minimum of £400, for a rig I deem “acceptable”. Motherboard about £70… CPU £150… RAM £60. … OK, that’s £270, but still – I am a 16 year old who has no job (nowhere seems to want you unless you have 3 years of experience in the line of work, which obviously, is impossible if you can’t actually get a job in that line of work. That, and the garden centre is too far). As you can no doubt see, this means I have an issue. Furthermore, we need another £30 or so on there to compensate for the obviously inadequate cooling I currently have.

So in a nutshell – FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-