[CathalA]

Problem involving blue screen of death and fan going crazy

I am experiencing a issue with my PC. Occasionally, I will get a BSOD. This will usually, but not always, happen just after I plug in a USB device (say a external hard disk or bluetooth dongle) but it had also happened with a pair of headphones. This happens very occasionally, too occasionally to investigate into. I would post error codes but they are extremely varied, so I don't really know.

The main problem is when I hit the power button after the BSOD has come up to shut off the computer. When I do this my fan suddenly goes crazy and is running at perhaps 5-8 times its normal speed, perhaps more, I can't really judge. It is very loud, and sounds like it is doing damage to itself (this usually causes an enormous cloud of dust to blow in to my face if I haven't cleaned the thing in a while ). I can hold down the power button for as long as I want, but it wont turn off. I have to yank the power cable to get it to turn off. I usually yank it as fast as possible because I'm concerned that leaving it doing that for longer than necessary will have a detrimental effect, or at least thats what my instincts tell me.

I have searched the internet fairly thoroughly and I wasn't able to find this particular kind of issue. I'm wondering has anyone heard of this kind of behavior before, and if anyone has any ideas as to whether it is doing any damage, or how I might fix it.

This is my first post here so if I have broken a rule or expected mannerism please let me know.

Many thanks in advance,

CathalA

[win2kpro]

First start by cleaning the interior portions of the machine especially the heatsink, the fan blades and fan hub.

Your machine is passively cooled and if the heatsink is clogged on the air intake side this will cause the fan to speed up to try to cool the processor.

If the problem continues after a thorough cleaning you may have a problem with the motherboard start/stop circuitry. The fact that this happens after plugging in a USB device may point to a possible motherboard circuitry problem since the USB ports are powered from the +5v rail, and the board start/stop circuitry is also powered by the +5v rail.

[CathalA]

Thanks for the reply.
I cleaned it out fairly well recently, but will do so again now just to be sure. If it happens again and will let you know.