Properties of Dust in Tower
 

Please allow me to first provide some background info.....

I wanted a computer and I knew that I wanted it to have maximum flexibility for upgrading. Because I had heard that computer manufacturers tend to use lower-quality parts, I wanted to build one ─ but I know next to nothing about computers. I knew a guy who said he knew how to build one, so I paid him and some weeks later he assembled it in front of me; he said that my request for Linux Mint was an unusual one. Flash forward maybe six months later* and the linux OS hangs on boot up. I have the guy come over and among other things he uses pressurized air to blow dust off the fans. Much to his surprise, the machine then boots up. Great!

So some weeks later the same thing happens again; so I go to a Best Buy** and buy canned air.*** Carefully keeping the can as vertical as possible, I blow off the fans and heat sink. Then the computer boots up as if nothing had happened.

So here's my question:
Does anyone know why dust on the fans and heat sink would cause an (in this case Linux Mint) OS to hang on boot up?


*I'm lousy with remembering dates and the like.
**I was NOT expecting this: So I go to the (security?) guy at the store entrance and ask if Best Buy sells canned air; he points me to the back. I go back and I'm looking for an employee for further directions when this guy comes walking to me with a two-pack package of compressed air. I've gotta admit that I was quite impressed! Another thing that surprised me: Best Buy sells large kitchen appliances! (By then, I realize that I must be one of the most clueless customers in the store.....)
***Best Buy does not sell canned air to persons <18 years old; apparently sniffing canned air for a high is a thing.....

Yeah, who'd'a thought that canned air is a thing?

About your problem:
Hard to say anything without knowing any of the parts involved.
Also, how exactly does it hang? at what stage?
It's normal for computers to disallow booting when they're too hot or they notice that the fan doesn't move at all. This might even happen on a level way below the OS.

A simple solution might be to turn the whole thing 90 degrees, so that the dust doesn't settle on top of the fan, but falls through to the bottom instead.

It's also possible that there's a loose contact, and opening the case sort of wiggles it in place, which coincides with the canned air treatment.
Or a hair fracture that contracts (canned air is very cold).......

Properties of Dust in Tower
 

Dust accumulated on a heatsink will keep the heat in, instead of allowing it to dissipate as it is supposed to.

Sorry if this a personal question, but how dusty is your house?? Perhaps you need a better vacuum cleaner?

how often do you have to use the can of air? If it is once a month or less, my guess would be a loose connection which has already been mentioned,unless your house is really dusty.

There are speciality Best Buy stores that sell kitchen appliances i.e ranges, ovens, dishwashers etc. but not all stores.

The fans are very important in keeping the temperature of the CPU and internal components cool. A build of of dust through out the computer i.e on the case air inlet, fans and heat sink etc. prevent the necessary amount of air to flow through the computer causing it to overheat and just quit working.

Are you talking a lot of dust? :scratch: How many wires does your fan have? Three? Then it has a rotational speed monitoring function available and probably uses it. A build up of dust may slow it down in which case the monitoring system may decide to shut the system down before it actually tries to load the boot/init sequence from the disk. I've had occasions when a fan speed error has caused HP Proliant and DEC Alpha servers (Yes, I'm that old!) to decide they weren't playing and would refuse to boot. I've even stripped a fan down, cleaned it out and re-lubricated it on at least one occasion when I needed to buy some time to re-order a replacement without having the power station the server helped run shut down as well!

I agree with the heatsink comments as well, an overheating CPU will also cause a system to shutdown before the CPU fries itsself.

My :twocents:

Play Bonny!

:hattip:

Thank You to Everyone
 

I wish to acknowledge:

1. ondoho
2. rkelsen
3. colorpurple21859
4. michaelk aaand...
5. Soadyheid

The thing that puzzled me ─ and the fellow who assembled it ─ was that the boot up was getting as far as putting the Linux Mint logo on the screen before going black with a non-blinking cursor and freezing.

I live in a rooming house with a couple of other guys; so, yeah, points taken.

I think that what puzzled the fellow who built it was that he had installed two fans (excluding the one in the 600W power
supply) and one of them is directly under the heat sink.

Very much appreciated.

reseat your graphic card if that is doable and your memory cards.

Dusty fans (which can result in overheating) is a good guess, but it's good to be sure.

If you know what your computer's IP is, you can try to SSH into it when it hangs. Then you can run "dmesg" and look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

If you can't ssh into it, then look at /var/log/messages after the reboot.

Responses/Acknowledgements
 

The funny thing about the graphics card ─ and really pissed off the guy who assembled the machine ─ is that he should not have had to have installed a graphics card in the first place! He bought the motherboard specifically because it has a graphics processor embedded in it. Turns out that the manufacturer physically disabled it! He vented his rage on Tom's Hardware.

Thanks for the tip!

A typical home computer has a CPU cooling fan as well as a case fan and maybe GPU fans besides the power supply fan. The case fan will usually suck air in from the front and blow it out the rear. Adding extra fans depending on their specs and where they are placed may not provide better cooling.

https://www.howtogeek.com/303078/how...w-and-cooling/

response to michaelk
 

I had quite forgotten about that.

Thanks for the link!

Sorry, but how is this SOLVED now?

responding to question by user ondoho
 

ondoho―

I'm not a frequent poster here (to put it mildly), but it's my understanding that if I don't label this thread as [SOLVED], then users would still think that I was seeking input. I am satisfied that the reason that the (Linux Mint) OS was hanging was because the dust on/in the heat sink was causing the CPU to overheat. I still need to figure out an effective way to dust my room though..... :redface:

^ Have you tried turning the whole machine 90 degrees like I suggested?