Overheating or Power Supply?

This past week Its been getting quite hot in my room due to the approaching summer. Since the heat rise my PC has been turning off at random intervels, particulary when I am playing a game that uses alot of rescources.

However the heat has subsided and I have a heavy duty fan blowing near my PC with the side panel taken off. At random intervels I am still getting non-provoked shutdowns. I was actually away from the PC watching television, and out of nowhere the PC shutdown while idle. I opened it up and felt the HDD, Power supply, and processor for heat. Yet they were all barely luke-warm.

My question is, Could it be time for a new power supply? I am dismissing CPU or HDD being the culprit due to when I boot up im not getting any error messages or alerts of overheating.


Probably unrelated but, can too much thermal silver compound put on the copper of the processor be a bad thing?

I would say its a virus.
I think its called W32.SHUTDOWN.VIRUS

To answer your last question first - too much thermal compound is definitely a bad thing - you should only have the barest amount to cover the surface - so that you can barely see it - it's only meant to fill the gaps where the heatsink and CPU don't touch, not to provide an intervening layer.  If you put a great wodge of it on, you're seriously degrading your heat dispersal from the CPU. 

As for your other question: I'd love to answer but it's time for my medication now..  Nurse!!

What's the PSU's wattage, and how often does the shutdowns occur? i.e. once an hour? once every 3 hours?

And posting system specs will help to narrow it down if it's dued to a failing PSU or the PSU not providing enough power to the system.

Popped Capacitors?

This is the OP


I am currentely on a different computer, it seems as though its a problem with the CPU.


Now when I turn it on I get the message of overheating please service unit ect. Except when it starts to boot into windows or even when I try to get into BIOS it will turn itself off in less then 10 seconds. So I leave a fan on near the computer hoping it will cool down overnite. Im still getting messages of overheating and the PC will barely last 10 seconds before it turns itself off.

So I open up the case, and take off the top part of the processor to feel how hot it is. Its very hot. Very very hot. So I let it cool down for a few hours. Come back and feel the processor, Its cold again. So I put the top back on, turn the power on and after 10 seconds turns off once again due to overheating. I take off the top of the processor and feel it for heat once more. It was cold beforehand but now its extremely hot.

I don't understand why it goes from cold to very very hot after only 10 seconds of the PC being on. Im suspecting that CPUs arent supposed to heat so quickly yet do not know why mine is.

As for specs the power supply is a 450w and my processor is a fairly new Intel 3.0

I forgot to mention I used a thermal cooling silver compound before the overheating began. Thinking that I put too much and this might be causing not enough heat disspearsion I cleaned off most of it with Q-tips. Since I cleaned it off its hasnt been able to get past the windows boot screen. I was wondering if there was any cotton traces from the q-tips and if this was causing the overheating. I checked and saw no evidence of this but was wondering if it might have a hand in the processor heating so quickly

Ok, so I manage to get into BIOS, and very fast I go to check on how hot the CPU is. Its running at 114 Celsius, I wasnt able to write it down in time but I believe thats around 230-240 farenheit. Is going from off status at a cold temperature to 114 in a matter of seconds normal?

>>8
No.

Remount your heatsink and fan properly. Be sure to find instuctions on how to properly clean and apply your thermal compound to a heatsink.

70 C is the absolute tip-top highest upper limit I would ever accept for a CPU. It should idle between 25-60 C depending on chip, cooling, etc.

>>8
One fucking hundred and fucking fourteen motherfucking Celsius!? That poor CPU is getting burnt. You better turn that off and do something about it. Read >>9, leave your case open, etc.

I have an awesome Thermaltake Golden Orb 2 which I bought very cheap and it was much better than I expected. My Athlon 64 Venice (3500+) is running at 24 ºC and it's summer over here. I wouldn't let any of my processors run hotter than 65 ºC, that's the point where I perform an emergency shutdown and check what's wrong with my hardware (dust, failing fans, failed installation, whatever; usually dust that gets in small heatsinks and completely blocks air flow).

>>8
surprised your CPU didn't catch fire.  (HOW DO I NUKED CPU?)

you probably damaged it anyway with all the thermal abuse and it will now not be reliable.

OP

I leave the side panel off, carefully clean off the top of the heat sink and reinstall it in. Have a very heavy duty fan blowing air near the PC with the side panel off in a cold room. The CPU is cold and off. I switch the PC on and it goes from 0 to 117 degrees in a matter of seconds. I dont see what else I can do to cool down the PC, this doesnt seem to be a matter of cooling anymore.

Can anyone explain the intense heat that the CPU reaches? Why is it frying itself?

I'd like to hope the warranty is still in effect, however I'm thinking adding thermal compound on the heat sink voids it. I hope if I take it to the local PC Club they can determine its something simpler like a clogged heatsink

sounds to me like a faulty temperature sensor.  if it was actually reaching that temperature that fast, and left on for any prolonged period of time, your cpu should be toast and not just sporadically triggering a reboot.

does it actually /feel/ that hot when you power on?

OP

It feels hot, however I don't see how its physcially "possible" that it can get to 110 degrees SO quickly. Im certainly hoping its a faulty temperature sensor, I'm taking it to a PC repair tommorow. Hopefully its something simple

>>14
It IS physically possible; you turn on a modern processor without a heatsink and it burns in 3 seconds, probably with smoke and all.

However, you may want to touch harb- touch the heatsink when it's on. See if it burns or not. If it doesn't, you have a faulty temperature sensor, which I'm starting to think most likely because 114 ºC is fucking insane.

Err something is pretty wrong here, if it's a fairly new intel Pentium then it shouldn't shut off just because of heat. Pentium 4s throttle down, and should even run without any heatsink installed at all.. can't imagine what's wrong.

>>15
Nah modern processor won't burn, all of them have thermal protection now.. It's definately a possible temp though, I remember old Athlon XP and Durons could reach near 300 degrees in less than 3 seconds.

If I found any of my processors running at 300 ºC I'd just run away screaming. Seriously, anything past 80 ºC is damn scary, I wouldn't let anything run that hot. It could even toast some nearby component or cause a fire if you don't use a case/have a strange case/whatever.