It was a close call. My box (squarehead) has the screemer. It almost gave up yesterday. A whole day of watching movies, the sun sets, dread of weekday nibbles at my head. Thats when I notice the output of ‘sensors’ program which said.

fan3: 0 RPM (min = 664 RPM, div = 8)

That hurt me.

Today, I called up my shop and they wanted the whole box to be brought to them When I am trying to squeeze time for extra-activities, that was too much. Lot of googling about the already known problem with A8N-E chipset fan. Back home I (as planned) opened the box up and felt the fan with my finger it was tight (almost as tight as a typical volume control knob!!). I brought the vacuum cleaner and let her rip the fan open. After a few seconds I heard the whine of the fan. That was a bit encouraging. after blowing off all the lint around in the box. I plugged squarehead in and booted. The rpm is back to the scream (~8K).

More cleaning. I made a little air filter (hope it does not affect the air flow too much) out of sponge and put it up in what appeared to be a major air inlet on the cabinet. I hope it runs for long before it gets the cold again. WTF!! Just as I type this its dropping to 4-5K RPM!!!.. #!@!@###@

I think my box is alive. I am not saying anything anymore.