Well it was the PSU....dead, full of dust. The guy's house was totally clean, with no pets. Wouldn't think he had a dust problem at all....but he did. The front temp display had been reading high lately, he said. This person was intelligent, but not a computer geek. Nobody had ever warned him about dust.
When I removed the front bezel to check for obstructions, I found the intake holes in the case were totally clogged with dust...and that was the only intake (the bottom of the bezel was where the air came in). This is a fairly standard case layout.
Which leads me to ask the question....Why don't computer case manufacturers do something about this dust problem, which affects everyone?
It would be very easy to add a slot in the front bezel, where a filter would fit. This filter could be easily checked/cleaned/changed by simply pulling it out of the slot. Many devices have air filtration....most now-days have filters easily replaced.
Most computer owners don't know/care about the dust problem. If the filter was in an easily accessable place, perhaps the normal computer owner could/would perform this little maintenance procedure....maybe save his computer from overheating due to dust.
