My desktop PC, used primarily for production, started making a funny fan noise a couple days ago. Today, it emited an alarm noise on powerup. This usually means something bad, so I had to diagnose the problem.

It turns out that the CPU cooling fan was worn out. It’s only a year or so old, so it’s kind of irking. Today’s CPU’s need active cooling fans, so when they poop out you have a few seconds to shut down before they melt down. Fortunately, my motherboard detects these anomalies and shuts down. So I went down to CompUSA and got a new one:

Behold!

This is an “enthusiast” CPU cooler, with an adjustable knob you can mount on your PC to control the fan speed. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work very well with the fan speed detection circuitry on my motherboard. For $14, it was one of the cheaper Athlon coolers, and it certainly looked neat. So far temperatures seem acceptable…not amazingly low, but at least my computer isn’t beeping at me anymore.