Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > alt.comp.hardware > #20848

Re: Cooling a HP desktop

Show all headers | View raw

On 6/3/2026 6:45 PM, Paul wrote:
> On Wed, 6/3/2026 6:18 PM, sticks wrote:
>> On 6/1/2026 9:31 PM, Paul wrote:
>>> On Mon, 6/1/2026 4:15 PM, sticks wrote:
>>
>> ---big snip---
>>
>>> But at least at the moment, you've corrected the worst part
>>> of what those idiots did. It should have had that fan in there.
>>
>> First, thanks for your valuable input, as always!
>>
>> Well, I thought I had the problem all sorted out, and yes, adding the case fan does lower the operating temperature nicely.  However, I noticed the temps creeping back up again when the computer idled for a long time.  One time it was up to almost 150F.  I believe the manufacturers believe this is an acceptable temp for this Ultra 5, but I see no reason to have it running that hot if I could find a way around it.  So I began my search for why when left unattended it was doing this.
>>
>> After many, many suggested fixes working with AI, nothing really worked.  Processor upper and lower powers, eliminating anything in device manager that had power options to turn off a device, anything on the bus that had power options was turned to not allow, and many other things I can't remember at the moment.
>>
>> I decided to install Fan Control, and that again helped, but didn't solve the problem.  In the end, nothing mattered as the system after a period of inactivity assumed the system was idle and turned the fans off, amazingly.  I even gave it a special task in task manager that was supposed to override the windows attempts to slow things down.  Didn't work.  The case fan does not have a speed sensor evidently, but Fan Control does allow me to manually set it to run at different levels, and I have it set for 60% for these summer months in the garage.  Not sure if it is windows or HP, but neither cared and after an unknown exact time both fans continued shutting down no matter what I did.
>>
>> What finally after two days appears to work, is a software mouse activity tool.  I installed Mouse Jiggler and for an hour and a half in 85F garage it stayed right at 100F with both fans continuing to work.  I set the time to jiggle at 49 seconds, after thinking it might even decide to save power after one minute, and it seems to work.  Defender did not block the app, but just to be safe I went ahead and whitelisted it.
>>
>> Now, I'll just monitor it for a while and hope it all works.
>>
> 
> When equipment does this, you bypass the header.
> 
> You will need a 4 pin Molex to 3 pin fan header, and you can plug
> the fan into that fan header. That would run the fan at 100%.
> 
>     # It has two pins in the three pin fan header shroud. The shroud
>     # is there to provide a bit of protection from a "male" connector
>     # shorting to the computer case if it comes loose. Male connectors
>     # are also available without a shroud, and then there is more danger.
>     # This would not accept a four pin PWM fan... but a three pin fan is fine.
> 
>     https://www.akyga.com/upl/app/products/images2/big-webp/bd1f8e8458f24c10cf6677d0c20201b9.webp.jpg
> 
> And without any electrical mods, you can locate a "stealth" 92mm fan,
> which will have say 1200RPM at 12V and then the noise level of that
> will not be irritating, and you can leave it running like that
> as a case-emptying fan. Such a fan might say "12V @ 0.1 amps" on the hub.
> 
> The BIOS logic in this case, is likely monitoring for 60C and
> it shuts off the fans until the temp is above 60C. My video card
> does this. Most of the time, the video card is about 35C and it
> doesn't even need the fan (only Furmark causes the fan to come on).

The low end BIOS on this box is frustrating.  Several of the ideas to 
try in the BIOS just weren't there.  The thermal options that looked 
promising were non existent in mine.  The is a tab that show the fan 
speed, but that's it.  Why even bother putting it in there if there are 
no associated control options.

> And yes, I've even bypassed the +5V on a video card fan
> to cause it to run continuously. I just haven't done it to
> this (newer) video card.
> 
> I generally like airflow... for all the materials in the
> PC where the temperature is not monitored.
> 
> As an example, one Asus motherboard had a tiny 8 pin regulator,
> which ran at 100C all the time. Someone detected this with a
> thermal scan of the motherboard, that it had a "hot item" onboard.
> While the device can likely tolerate this, it's still
> not a good look. And for such cases, a person could buy
> a RAMSink and the Arctic Silver two component thermal epoxy
> to mount it. Or a RAMSink with thermal tape on it. The thermal
> epoxy is non-removable -- you can mix the AS Epoxy with a third
> substance to "weaken it" and make it possible to remove it.
> 
> You can likely spend a bit more time, considering your options
> for a fan. Giving the fan an "assured" power source, will keep
> the BIOS from switching it off. And then you won't need the mouse jiggler.

I will keep this in mind as I move forward.  I am fine with using the 
system like this, but there are two things I am not happy with.

First, when I put the desktop to sleep, the jiggler wakes it up 49 
seconds later.  So before I can put it to sleep I have to tell it to 
stop jiggling.  No big deal, but an annoying step.  I suppose I could 
find a simpler way to do this, and I might end up doing that.

Second, this morning when I woke the thing it told me "Smart App Control 
blocked a file that may be unsafe."  So whitelisting it in defender 
might keep that from being a problem, but it is separate from the smart 
app control, and you can't whitelist individual apps in there, you can 
only give them temporary single use permission.  So I did turn off the 
control entirely.

-- 
Science Doesn’t Support Darwin. Scientists Do

Back to alt.comp.hardware | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Cooling a HP desktop sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> - 2026-05-31 19:07 -0500
  Re: Cooling a HP desktop sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> - 2026-05-31 20:31 -0500
    Re: Cooling a HP desktop Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-05-31 23:19 -0400
      Re: Cooling a HP desktop sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> - 2026-06-01 15:15 -0500
        Re: Cooling a HP desktop Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-06-01 22:31 -0400
          Re: Cooling a HP desktop sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> - 2026-06-03 17:18 -0500
            Re: Cooling a HP desktop Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-06-03 19:45 -0400
              Re: Cooling a HP desktop sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> - 2026-06-04 09:23 -0500
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-06-04 13:26 -0400
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> - 2026-06-06 10:38 -0500
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-06 19:19 +0200
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-06-07 03:09 -0400
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-07 14:55 +0200
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-06-07 14:46 -0400
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-07 23:18 +0200
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-06-07 18:56 -0400
                Re: Cooling a HP desktop Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-06-07 22:09 -0400

csiph-web