Heating problem?

My computer turns off all by itself whenever it wants. Seems like the mornings it shuts down less than the evening. Or it will be fine for an entire week then all of sudden turn off completey with no warning. No error message, nothing, just goes out like a light.

My Power Mgmt is set to never turn off, and there is no standby set either. My fans are working properly.

When the computer shuts off like this, I have to turn the back button off, unplug the main power cord, wait a minute, plug it back in, turn on the power switch, then power up the pc. It will go into scandisc, which results are fine, then it will start up normally.

I never get any error messages for anything. My pc works beautifully - EXCEPT for the ghost that just turns it off.

People have told me it could be the BIOS - there is no BIOS upgrade for my system. People have said it is a virus, I have checked it so many times - NOTHING.

What is wrong with my computer????

This question was answered on May 17, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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This sounds like a heating issue to me, especially since you are saying its less frequent in the morning It is cooler in the morning then in the evening so it is more likely you get more shutdowns during the evening There are a few things you can check in your computer to make sure it is properly cooled

Make sure you have atleast one fan in the front of your case blowing air to the back and atleast one fan in the back blowing the hot air out This will keep air circulation throughout your case cooling the case down considerably If you can put 2 in the front and 2 in the back.

If your case fans are fine, second thing to do is make sure you do not have your computer next to something hot, such as your monitor, or next to a heater

If your case is not near any source of heat, next and last thing to check would be your CPU fan and heatsink First make sure your fan is working and is blowing towards the heatsink If that is fine make sure your heatsink is tightly secure, if it is tightly secure remove the heatsink and check if there is a substance between the heatsink and CPU if there is not, that is the problem why your computer is restarting The CPU is overheating If there is no substance you can buy something called silicone which is a white substance, and in my opinion is not that great An alternative is something called Artic Silver, you can buy this at many online retailers including www.newegg.com and/or www.coolerguys.com When you do get the substance in put a think layer on the CPU core, once you have done that tighly secure your heatsink/fan back on to the CPU And the CPU should/will not overheat any more.

If you have done all this and there is still a problem I suggest trying to swap pieces in your computer with spare parts to make sure that everything is working fine, such as your memory, video card, sound card, etc...

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Posted by Dimitrios of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on May 17, 2004

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