Re: A PC question.

On Tue, 13 May 2008 14:06:10 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
<dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This is something that seems to have defeated the best minds in the UK so
I thought I'd try here...;-)

I have a home assembled PC - about 18 months old - using an Asus A8N5X MB
and an Athlon 64 3000+ CPU. It's mainly used for semi-pro AV work.

After a year or so of faultless service, it started shutting down at
random. Would usually boot up again ok and carry on. After a few occasions
I took to having PCProbe loaded and noticed the CPU temp would shoot up
just before it shut down. So naturally removed the heatsink/fan, cleaned
and replaced with new thermal transfer compound.

All was well for a month or so, then the fault started happening earlier
and earlier - sometimes before XP had loaded. The bios power management
page again showed the CPU overheating - going from ambient to overheat in
around a minute. But the heatsink was cool to the touch. ;-)

Speculating here, but if the heatsink is cool and the CPU says that
it's overheating, then you may not have gotten a good thermal bond
between the two.

Many possible causes. Might have too much thermal compound. The
heatsink could be canted at an angle where there's only a linear
contact area. Might be some foreign material between the two (cat
hairs?).

Try the clean and replace process one more time. The Arctic Silver
website has some how-to's that apply to installing CPU heatsinks
generally.

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA
.

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