O/T ... Computer Issues , Part III

[Jurollo]

A while back I posted about my computer shutting down without warning and then getting errors when I attempted booting it right back up. After letting it sit for a little while I am allowed to boot again and eventually it would crash again. I just bought a new fan for the computer and installed it, however, I have a few questions about things I noticed.

1) the CPU fan doesn't run a lot when I have my computer on? Is this normal, are they supposed to only run for a second or two at first?

2) I noticed my CPU was loose, somehow when it was installed it didnt lock into the motherboard, could this have caused the crashing and/or overheating?

3) What is the normal temperature for a CPU? When I started it the BIOS' PC Health section says 30C, however that was right after I restarted it after sitting for a while.


Thanks for the help.
~Justin

[rbear]

1) that's what i notice, only kicks on at first and then when it heats up

2) don't think so, but possible

3) http://www.heatsink-guide.com/conten...=maxtemp.shtml

[FishInAPhoneBooth]

Can we get some information about the computer? What kind of CPU do you have?

[Exitonly]

1) er.. i'm pretty sure the CPU fan is supposed to be running .. all the time. Maybe not though.
2) If the heatsink was loose then yea that would cause the overheating and the problems
3) you can't really measure the temp after its been off, gotta check it after it's been busy for a while. 30C isn't too hot though.

[Jurollo]

Update:
So I bought a new hard drive, attempted to install it and the computer was doing the same exact thing. So it isn't a virus because I was attempting to do a clean install. So now I am obviously looking at some hardware issues... when looking at the CPU fan I see it try to move but it doesn't it 'flinches' so I am assuming that this is the problem. So I am going to buy a new one tomorrow and hope that fixes the problems, I am getting different error msgs now so I don't know if overheating will do that, I mainly see
STOP:c000021a 0x00000402 for an error and the computer randomly reboots, I am thinking it is heat but I will attempt to run diagnostics on my ram if I can get the thing started again. The more help the better, thanks!
~Justin

[Exitonly]

if you have some spart parts hanging around, swap out the ram and see if that does it. but i really think it's got to do with heat, and you could definitely have damaged your CPU.

[Jurollo]

Yea I am worried that I damaged the CPU, although, i guess it could be worse, considering the CPU is only $100 or so.
~Justin

[adanthar]

That sounds more and more like a heating problem...30C is very low even for a startup temp, though.

Try putting it on the side (no, you won't damage the HDD/DVD drive/anything else) so that the heatsink faces up, then take off the cover and run a fan off the edge of a table right into the guts of the PC. If it is now normal it's 100% the heatsink and you can replace that. If not, it's probably the RAM/CPU or some combination of the two.

[Jurollo]

Well that was after sitting for hours, then when I restarted it right after it crashed it was around 80C I believe, this is even 5 minutes after. However, it will sometimes run for days and days without problems and then finally get sluggish for a second and then shut down, the shut downs are not systematic but instead are very very random. Does this help anyone?
~Justin

[adanthar]

80C is pretty close to permanently frying it so you've found your problem...keep it lying on its side or buy a new sink.