Browser Constantly running at very high power, fans screaming

davezeb · 27 Feb 2024

Hi again. Yeah, since I repasted the CPU I also checked the surrounding connections. It wasn't like gooped up everywhere. Simply far thicker than one should ever do. The fan is correctly attached, and I also have gone through and cleaned out the case thoroughly. Part of general maintenance I always perform with computers, especially as I was living myself in a rather dusty home for a few years.

Other than that, she is about 7 years old, so age can indeed do things sometimes under the hood that might not normally be diagnosable.

Oh, and I did check the BIOS. Sadly, typical Dell near useless mass market BIOS. Almost zero ability to modify anything at all, save the boot sequence. Really neutered. However, it is all up to date within the last year, and the issue precedes that time.

Trying to extend the lifespan of the ole girl here, as she's still got some decent power. She was a top line computer when brand new, and while some of the form factors are now legacy and basically un-upgradeable, the basics are still plenty good to drive most present games with good to very good graphics.

3Bit · 27 Feb 2024

Ha ha! it's always state-of-the-art until your by it. Then it is obsolete.
it's a constant [artificial] competitive race; the software demanding better hardware, the hardware requiring better software, the latter demanding better hardware it's an endless chase like a hamster in a wheel... some call it marketing and increasing sales....

So you're saying this fan issue only happens with Firefox?
If you run Task manager, what is the CPU usage when this happen?
What apps run and what are the various temperatures?
Do you know exactly is it the CPU fan? What about the PS fan or another fan?

Did you change those Firefox settings I recommended you earlier? is it absolutely only Firefox?
Also, if you can try, either uninstall and reinstall or at least a refresh of Firefox.
It might help as I suspect some misconfiguration somewhere.

Also try this: If Firefox is slow to load pages, delete contents [all subfolders] in:
C:\Users\your username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\your Firefox profile\datareporting\archived

finally it could be a defect/glitch on the motherboard that some temperature sensor or component causes a false information causing the fan to rev up. As mentioned before it could be the CPU fan itself if it is the latter who revs up.

For instance I made a little test and used a hardware monitoring software on an Asus H170 Pro motherboard. on this motherboard I get notorious reports from certain temperature sensors of 108°C!
Yet spot metering the whole motherboard there is nowhere anything that comes near such.
The motherboard itself has been performing perfectly since over five years.

You could always try to order a replacement CPU cooler/fan assembly and see what happens when you replace the current one.

One more thought: since this happened after the technician worked on all, are you 100% certain that the cooler to CPU is properly assembled? The correct thermal paste (i.e. Arctic Silver) used and not toothpaste?

Even if you have/read reasonable temperatures, a misalignment/assembly or wrong thermal paste or improper cleaning prior to reassembly could be a cause.

What I see as a possibility is that the heat transfer does not occur efficiently, the CPU warms up the sensors register high temperature the fan starts roaring and despite the poor assembly or thermal paste enough heat is transferred away hence the high RPMs. The result is you read reasonable normal temperatures and the fan roaring.

Do a brief simple test: with the computer running and assuming that it is the CPU fan, stop the fan with your finger and watch what happens to the temperatures (task manager or any other suitable application showing temperatures).
Don't do this too long! Don't cook your CPU!
If the temperatures shoot up right away the cause could likely be a cooler assembly/thermal paste issue.

I tried it on my CPU which typically never gets more than lukewarm, 50°C Max and the CPU fan always runs at the lowest speed. (currently around 33°C) however, with the fan [finger] stopped, the temperature rise is gradually slowly increasing.
If in your case the temperature immediately shoots up to high temperatures then you likely have a cooler respectively thermal paste assembly issue.

PS what kind of cooler do you have? Is it one utilizing heat transfer pipes?