I would think it would also depend on how far in it is; you might not be able to get it out with your fingers, but maybe a pair of tweezers might do the trick.

If not, then it should pretty much be like Yasha said -- if it doesn't harm your computer, no worries. And if it's still usable, then you can just use it as a little extra on board storage(so long as you don't get a virus on it or something like that).

I have an issue where my GPU crashes while I'm playing video games.  Worse, it's crashing under increasingly small loads; it used to take Starcraft 2 to crash it, now it's Minecraft.  Drivers are up to date.  I suspect that the CPU, the GPU, or both are overheating:


(Most system specs are in the picture; I'm running Windows 7 64-bit.)

Would one of our amazing actually-knows-stuff-about-computers people take a look and tell me whether there's software I should futz around with, or whether I need to skip straight to replacing the graphics card, or what?  Thank you

I can hear at least one fan running, and it definitely runs faster as the load increases.  I should have said that in the first place!

Edit: I should also say that my PC is not overclocked; all the hardware is original.  The PC is a little more than two years old.

Last edited by satyreyes (01-16-2014 09:42:08 PM)

Sixty-five?!  Geez, okay, I guess I do have a pretty big problem.  I am... not good at all... at digging around inside computers.  I'm not sure how to open my laptop, even.  I imagine I could figure that part out, but what to do next?

Sounds like something I can do.  Thanks for your help, both of you! 

Are there any particular signs of bullshittery I should be looking for?  I've rarely had work done on my computer before, so I don't really know who's reputable.

Muchas gracias. 

I'd like to weigh in and warn you to delete and pass over with a cleaning program anything even remotely sensitive, ESPECIALLY personal things like emails, photo albums etc. I've averaged a visit to a pro every year or two, and only on one or two occasions have I not found signs that they had been through my files. One of them I damn near went back to the shop to thump someone; I was collecting wallpapers at the time, and when I took my computer home, I discovered another wallpaper folder next to the one I already had. I think they thought they were being nice to me, but this folder was five subfolders down, so the fuckers would have had to go right through my pictures folder. I had deleted all the porn and such when I took it in, but that's beside the point. It's one thing to break into someone's underwear drawer, but rearranging it is infinitely worse.

Last edited by crystalwren (01-17-2014 12:47:56 AM)

Nova wrote:

Is it a laptop? Blast the air inlets and exhausts with compressed air. They usually have such tiny openings that they very easily clog with accumulated lint and dust, and the difference between "running hot but within spec" and "meltdown" is razor-thin on most laptops.

I should have said this in the first place: yes, it is a laptop.

I took the machine in to the one place in Fort Myers my family has used before.  They were a little quizzical, like: "overheating? on a laptop? do people even game on laptops? is there even anything we can do about that?"  At length we agreed that they'll do what they can do in an hour, namely check the fans and dust the hell out of the interior, which is about all they can do without completely disassembling the computer anyway.  If it's beyond that -- if it's a problem with the "thermal paste" or whatever it was they called it -- then I'll have to call Dell (sigh) and see about a warranty replacement.

Thanks again, everyone, and I'll let you know what comes of it!

It sounds like you're headed in the right direction, and top marks for not wanting a shitty power supply. You're right that AMD have a series of processors (termed "APUs") which have a decent integrated graphics chip on the same die. They're based around the Piledriver architecture and they're not bad for entry-level gaming, and will deffo tide you over until you can get a proper video card into that waiting slot.

To get to the list of A-series APUs on Newegg, drill down using the following sequence:

    Home > Computer Hardware > CPUs / Processors > Processors - Desktops > A-Series

(Ordinarily I like to pimp people on Ivy Bridge or Haswell Intel chips, but you're on a hella tight budget, and AMD have some really nice products in that space. I think AMD will do for ya.)

Nova wrote:

It sounds like you're headed in the right direction, and top marks for not wanting a shitty power supply. You're right that AMD have a series of processors (termed "APUs") which have a decent integrated graphics chip on the same die. They're based around the Piledriver architecture and they're not bad for entry-level gaming, and will deffo tide you over until you can get a proper video card into that waiting slot.

To get to the list of A-series APUs on Newegg, drill down using the following sequence:

    Home > Computer Hardware > CPUs / Processors > Processors - Desktops > A-Series

(Ordinarily I like to pimp people on Ivy Bridge or Haswell Intel chips, but you're on a hella tight budget, and AMD have some really nice products in that space. I think AMD will do for ya.)

I'm definitely leaning towards AMD for my next rig. If anything, I wanna try and get one as part of a DIY package; I wanna get everything so all I'll need is a hard drive, and that's where I get the one from my friend.

Okay.  Minecraft is crashing again, and now with all temperatures at or below 76.  Same crash as before; the display driver fails and recovers.  So either it's not overheating, or it's overheating at lower and lower temperatures, and either way it ain't a good sign for the ol' GPU.  Looks like I am going to need to spend a couple hours on the phone with Dell's support team and then somehow live without my computer for several days.  Le sigh. 

satyreyes wrote:

My computer is sold as a gaming PC.  Evidently, to support that selling point, Dell ships this model with overclocking enabled on the processor.  This ordinarily doesn't cause trouble, but in conjunction with a dirty interior, it's a recipe for not much good.  So on top of cleaning the interior, the computer guys disabled overclocking.

What what? Excuse me if this is a stupid question, I build all my rigs so I don't run into this often, but is this now par for the course? Companies overclocking their rigs to meet certain specs instead of just making those specs the hardware defaults? (LOL BUT MONEY1!!) It just seems like shitty practice overall, because most users don't know what OC does to the hardware and aren't aware of the precautions added to such rigs. Especially in regards to laptops. You basically have a ticking time bomb on a laptop for how most users use it if you've OCed right out of the box.