[zookpoo]

Around a month ago my PSU died, which I then ordered a new one and installed it. When I started playing 3d games, the CPU would overheat to about 140F and would freeze the computer. I just underclocked it and it worked fine for a while.

About a week ago, the computer would crash about 15 minutes after powering on, if it was off for around 5 hours or more, and would work fine after that. today I started the computer, started playing a game and it crashed as usual, then I restart and it crashed after about 10 minutes. I restarted and it crashed after about 5 minutes. I let it sit for a while, then checked the temp when I started it again and it said 95F. When it started it crashed while loading windows. I tried once after this and it just crashed after a few minutes.

edit: It will always crash when I start a 3D game.
edit2: I took a stick of ram out and I was able to run a game for a few minutes before crashing. I tried with both sticks alone.
Edit3: i actually went into bios and let it sit a bit to watch the CPU temp and it crashed when i wasn't watching at the time, was at around 110F the last time i looked at it.

Edited by zookpoo, 03 April 2006 - 06:38 PM.

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The CPU temp is usually the first one in the bios and it should be in the 40 to 60 degrees range. Any higher and the motherboard will shut down. There is usually a shutdown temp in the bios where the computer will shutdown(off) to keep from damaging the hardware. Have you checked to see if the processor heatsink fan is running? Can you touch the chipset's(or their heatsinks) or are they too hot to touch? There could be a problem with the thermal paste that is between the CPU and the heatsink causing the high temp.

http://www.extremete...,1149273,00.asp

I think you need to find where the heat problem is and fix it.

SRX660

[SRX660]

The CPU temp is usually the first one in the bios and it should be in the 40 to 60 degrees range. Any higher and the motherboard will shut down. There is usually a shutdown temp in the bios where the computer will shutdown(off) to keep from damaging the hardware. Have you checked to see if the processor heatsink fan is running? Can you touch the chipset's(or their heatsinks) or are they too hot to touch? There could be a problem with the thermal paste that is between the CPU and the heatsink causing the high temp.

http://www.extremete...,1149273,00.asp

I think you need to find where the heat problem is and fix it.

SRX660

[zookpoo]

When it started crashing I checked the heatsink and it was clogged with dust, I cleaned it out and still crashed. Could just overheating a few times cause this to happen like this?

The computer crashed today after being off for about 12 hours. The temperature was about 34C when it did crash. The heatsink felt slightly warm, but not hot.

[zookpoo]

I've made sure everything in the computer is cooled fine, but i'm still crashing at seemingly random times. When I was in BIOS, I just moved the cursor up and it crashed, sometimes when I'm watching things on google video. A few few games will make it crash consistantly.

Does anyone have adviceon this?

[SRX660]

If your CPU is at 110° F (43° C) it is at about the right temp for normal running. I wonder if you have some malware on your computer. Go to the malware forum and try running those programs to make sure that isnt the problem. After you get to the desktop, do a ctrl-alt-delete and go to the performance tab and see what your cpu is doing. There may be some background programs running that is causing high cpu usage. You are running windows XP?

http://www.geekstogo...-Log-t2852.html

If possible download Speedfan, and check to see what your voltages are. Low +12 volts or +5 volts could mean that your new power supply may not be up to the task of running your computer. It seems lately i have been replacing a lot of power supplys with better quality ones because of crashing problems. Speedfan will also let you see your temps for the processor, motherboard, and case in the taskbar which is nice.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

SRX660

[Samm]

Hi zookpoo

Apologies for butting in here briefly. I agree with SRX660 that it would be worth double checking the voltages coming from the PSU. You may have voltage monitoring in the bios but if not, then use a utility like the one SRX660 suggested. Can you tell us what brand name the PSU is & what it's power rating in watts is please?

Could you also give us the rest of your system specs? In particular, CPU (type & speed), memory, video card, sound card & motherboard.

[zookpoo]

The PSu is a 400w Xion

BIOSTAR M7NCD Socket A (Socket 462) NVIDIA nForce2 400 ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton 333MHz FSB Socket A Processor Model AXDA2500BOX
2 X mushkin SP3200 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model 991093
Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive
PNY VCG6600GAPB Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card

[zookpoo]

SpeedFan says the +12 and +5v are within .05 of it, but the -5v is at +3.6.

Edited by zookpoo, 14 April 2006 - 02:11 AM.

[Samm]

OK, thanks for the info.

BTW, don't worry about the -5V reading, this is fairly common & does not normally mean that the -5V rail is actually supplying the wrong voltage.

I want to clarify what you said re. the system crashing in the bios. What exactly happened? Did the system freeze completely or reboot itself or what?

[zookpoo]

The display froze. All the fans kept runnning.

[zookpoo]

I think i found the problem, I checked in the video card properties and it said it was using a PCI bus, but it was in an AGP slot. I tried updating my motherboard drivers but the computer won't stay on long enough to install.



Installed: no dice.

I borrowed someone's PSU and it's been running fine. thanks for the help

Edited by zookpoo, 15 April 2006 - 02:22 PM.

[Samm]

The PSU could certainly account for it. If it's running OK now with another PSU then that's obviously what the problem was