I bought an HP desktop tower many years ago - probably 2012 for a few hundred bucks at Best Buy. It's been a work horse for me and I leave it on near constantly.

About a year ago the CPU fan stopped working and I did some troubleshooting. It turned out if I plugged the CPU fan into the power source for my exhaust fan that the CPU fan worked just fine. So it's probably that plug in spot that isn't providing the CPU fan its power.

I've left the CPU fan plugged in to the working power source since but haven't found another power source to use for my exhaust fan.

The last few weeks this PC has shut itself down a few times. It works fine when I turn it back on and will keep powering on for well over a week before another shut down.


Is it easy to fix/upgrade a new power source for my CPU fan or exhaust fan? Or are there other cooling aids I could add to the box?

I abuse this computer FWIW. I leave it on ALL THE TIME and only restart when it gets extremely sluggish.

The whole tower was pretty cheap even back in 2012. Maybe $500 IIRC. I'd consider getting a new one but I don't really want to have to bother with moving over all of my applications so what I'd like to consider instead is

1. If I can fix the culprit issue of shutting down without needing much technical expertise.

2. If I can and if it is worthwhile to upgrade this tower with some new hardware.

It's running Windows 10, has 26G RAM (16 of that is upgraded from me, somehow this box came with 10 GB to start!?!?) and has an AMD A10-6800k APU with Radeon HD GRaphics 4.10 GHz (I think this reflects the upgrade I made to the GPU when the original wouldn't support my two monitor set up.)


Can this thing be saved? Are there some good upgrades I could make to it instead of buying a whole new computer?

Thanks for any help.

what HP model? look at the sticker on the back.

What do you use the PC for? What do you want to use it for?

Model is PS 5301 02 (at least that's what the sticker inside the box says.)


I use the PC for everything. I use it every day for work and occasionally for playing poker or watching shows (I often use my laptop for those things so I can escape my desk, but when working having the multiple monitors is nice.) I'd like to continue using it for everything. I leave it one and have easy, quick access to the MILLION (ok, I'm exaggerating) tabs I keep open on various market activities and website monitoring, etc.

uhm that's the power supply's serial number, but at least good to know it's standard form factor and not proprietary , so you can put in any new one off the shelves

I needed the system model so I can look at pictures of the motherboard and see what fan headers you got on it and also what diameter the exhaust fan was and what connector it has

try the back, sides or underneath the pc's case or at least a serial number off the motherboard

My bad! And thanks for your help and patience.

Serial No. MXX345110T

Product No. H6V14AA#ABL

Model No. 500-189

ok so it seems your mobo has both system fan and cpu fan headers
I'm guessing cpu fan is using a 4 pin ATX connector, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to plug it straight into the power supply
looks like the system fan uses a molex connector and that goes on the motherboard, you should be able to see SYS_FAN written somewhere on your mobo.

so possible causes for your pc shutting down

1. because system fan is not running to exhaust hot air AND cpu cooler is inefficient (either the fan is dusty / clogged up or the thermal paste on the bottom of your cooler that makes contact with the cpu has dried and flaked out), these coupled together result in the cpu getting too hot and having to turn off to avoid cooking itself to death. these older AMD cpus are notorious for the heat they put out.

2. power supply's fan is completely clogged up and can't spin, that will exhibit the same behavior and shut itself off

3. power supply is damaged and on its last legs, one of the internal components might have popped out. if this is the case , you'l have to get a new one, don't try to get inside and diy. ATX PSUs start from from 20$ or so, you don't need anything fancy, nor do you need the exact same one you had before.

I'd first try to find a way to power the system fan, either a molex header on the board, if that doesn't exist (look in proximity to where the audio jacks and usb that go out of the board are), a molex to 4pin ATX adapter cable



molex is on the left, the 4 pin ATX on the right goes into the power supply

2nd step and I would do this regardless, take off the cpu cooler (4 normal screws) , clean the fan blades with a can of compressed air or a brush, clean off the thermal paste residue on the bottom metal part of the cooler and replace with a pea sized drop of good paste https://www.amazon.com/ARCTIC-MX-4-2...s%2C268&sr=8-4
you can use other ones, but preferably not the cheapest, silicon based pastes. put back on, tighten screws so that it makes contact properly, don't over tighten to infinity cause it can damage the board

take your compressed air can to the back of your power supply, where you can see a fan and give it a few blows, tilt it towards you to let the dust/hair fall out. I recommend you do this outside, if you've never cleaned your pc before, 8 years of dust and gunk will make a mess.

once you've managed to get the system fan working and the cpu cooler back in mint condition, test for temperatures with this https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html .free, get the zip version so you don't have to install anything.
use your computer normally for a couple of hours with that software on the background, tell us what temps you got.

Thank you very much!!!

You are right about everything, down to the number of pins/prongs on the connectors. And the dust. I have cleaned the dust several times (when making upgrades over the years) and then again when I looked inside the box to give you the incorrect serial number. I just used my Dewalt air compressor and held a Dyson hand vac where I was blowing to suck out the immense amount of dust that was in there. It's pretty darn clean now though!

I will look more closely for another plug in for the fan. There are certainly no more in proximity nor with the right number of pins but with the adapter doubling as an extension hopefully I can get a power source for it.

Thanks again!

Start fresh. Nothing in that box is worth moving forward to a new PC. You can buy a 2-3 year old refurb and still get a good boost in performance if you want to save some bucks.

Using standard vaccuums inside PC cases is highly inadvisable due to the risk of electrostatic discharge. You can zap a component and end up with a flakey or dead system. Blow out the case, air compressor is ok but not optimal (compressor oil in the air unless it goes through a dryer). Then move the PC away and vac the debris.

You can try to repair your existing PC as a secondary/backup/for other uses, but I wouldn't sink much money into it when you can get a faster refurb for $200-300.

If the issue still occurs with the heatsink cleaned out, you can try replacing the thermal paste on your CPU. You'll need to remove the heatsink, clean the heatsink base and cpu top with isopropyl alcohol, then apply fresh paste and reattach the heatsink. Youtube should have plenty of demos of people doing this.
Your CPU fan header is most likely dead on the motherboard. Not the end of the world as its been working fine on the case fan header.
You can plug the case fan to one of the extra Molex (generally translucent white 4 pin D shaped lead from power supply) or SATA power connectors on your PSU. Check whether the case fan has a 3 pin or 4 pin connector and order an adapter with the same pin count on the fan (smaller connector) side. Your case fan will run at full speed all the time with these adapters, but your PC will be cooler if a bit noisier. Getting more complicated than this with fan speed controllers is more expense than it's worth in this scenario.
3 Pin to Molex
https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Conne...s%2C229&sr=8-8
3 pin to SATA power
https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Conne...3325886&sr=8-3