[Daned]

Something in my PC seems to keep overheating.

I built my own PC from various bits a couple of years ago now and one Summer after my PC had been on, I heard a tiny little warning siren ringing inside it. Obviously, I switche it off and left it for a while.

Now, a friend of mine who did computer technology at University and works for a PC store, believed that the problem was probably my graphics card.

Now, recently the problem has been becoming more and more frequent until today, when my graphics card died completely. When I booted up my PC, it could get no further than the Windows 98 screen.

So, I tried a spare graphics card that I had lieing around and it worked fine. Until I started playing computer games, then it started beeping away!

Has anyone any thoughts on what this problem might be and have you got any tips on what I can do to avoid it?

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Siren normally means that the CPU is overheating. You need to check your system temps asap. Most machines nowadays have a facility in the bios that will report the temperatures, so check this out first.

If the temp is not too high(no higher than 50C if the system has already been on for a while beforehand, less than 40C if it's totally cold), leave the system running for a short while in windows. If you hear the siren, reboot immediately back into the bios, check the temperatures & shut the system down straight away.

Let me know what happens & let me know what processor you have.

[Samm]

Siren normally means that the CPU is overheating. You need to check your system temps asap. Most machines nowadays have a facility in the bios that will report the temperatures, so check this out first.

If the temp is not too high(no higher than 50C if the system has already been on for a while beforehand, less than 40C if it's totally cold), leave the system running for a short while in windows. If you hear the siren, reboot immediately back into the bios, check the temperatures & shut the system down straight away.

Let me know what happens & let me know what processor you have.

[Daned]

Thanks Samm

I had a look in Bios and discovered a disturbing CPU temperature of 63! This was only after having my PC on about 10 minutes!

Well, I had to go into town anyway, so I dropped by my local PC shop and asked them if they had any fans (my flatmate says he uses 5 in his PC and I just had 2, one on my graphics card and one on my CPU). Anyway, he had them in 2 sizes which I thought was odd, but I thought "[bleep], I'll just buy 1 of the larger ones".

Anyway, I get home open my case and suddenly notice a large empty holder, just the right size for my big fan! So, my system had been without a fan in the case! Then I suddenly wonder to myself, which way round does the fan go? So I test it out and find out which is the "cold side" and put it in.

Then I noticed that the fan on my CPU is, of course, the wrong way round!

So, now I've corrected it, checked and got a temp now of 40. Much healthier!

So, thanks to you and your suggestion, I can now have a completely unconstructive Saturday, playing The Sims and sunbathing, without worrying about my [bleep] PC!

[Samm]

Glad it's sorted out, enjoy your Saturday!

[Daned]

Oops! Spoke way too soon.


No sooner than I'd made that post, the siren went off!

I'd been using an AMD-AD850MPR24B for my processor but I still had my previous processor, which is less powerful and it seems to have been less bother.

I wonder if I need to alter the settings on my motherboard to run the newer processor? The motherboard's manual claims it can handle my faster processor.

[Samm]

The motherboard should auto detect the CPU correctly if it supports it. However, if you want to double check, have a look in the bios for the cpu settings (FSB, multipler, Vcore voltage etc) & let me know what it says.
Can you let me know what the CPU actually is, I'm afraid ad850mpr24b doesn't tell me much!

Also, you said you upgraded the CPU. Did you also upgrade the heatsink/fan? What did you use in terms of thermal paste etc?