For about 6 - 10 months I have had a problem when I am playing any game on my PC that it would freeze for about 45 seconds then restart.... so I ignored it, but it kept happening over and over and over again. I asked a couple of friends and they said your CPU is probably over-heating so I downloaded Hmonitor and my CPU runs at 40 degrees Celsius when i'm not even playing a game, which is too high itself. Since I know now my problem is my CPU over-heating and not my video card I am asking for some help, besides dusting the entire computer which ive done twice now and a 1 degrees in Celsius change was all I got. Anyways, can someone please tell me some steps to fix my CPU from repitively over-heating and restarting while I'm playing a game?

Please Help

Depending on the CPU 40c is not too extreme.

That being said you could try to remove and replace the thermal paste and or try a more powerful fan. The ideal solution would be liquid cooling.

But again I do not think that 40c is going to affect most CPU's.

Are you sure that it is not a Graphics Card problem?

My computer runs betweeen 25 - 30 Celcius on Idle and when im copying music it does'nt run any higher than 33 Celcuis.

I thought that was too hot but i have been told that these temperatures are alright becasue there not high.

Im running a AMD Sempron Paris Socket 754 1.8Ghz Clock Speed overclocked to 2.0Ghz Clock Speed.

My advice is try to remove the thermal paste from the processor and CPU Heat Sink block and add some new thermal paste to the surfaces.

If that does'nt work then try and upgrade to a bigger CPU Heatsink and Fan.

Also has your computer been overclocked or is it running as standard.

im not sure how could i find out if it is a graphics card problem (im running geforce FX 5700 VE AGP 8X 256 MB) and no im not overclocking, but im pretty sure it is my CPU because i was playing MOHAA and all of the sudden grenades started blowing up blue so i was like wtf on TS and a friend of mine said that my cpu is overheating and thats one symptom and the later symptom is a non-prompted computer restart that i can't stop from happening. Anyways, im only 14 and im not too experienced with computers, for example the thermal paste situation is too risky because i have no idea what im doing so i'm probably going to get http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Ultra...oductDetail.do and I don' know how to find a power supply that will fit my case....

If your CPU was over heating then the Motherboard would shut the computer down to stop the cpu getting damaged or any other hardware getting damaged.It would'nt restart it self all the time.

I think it may be a problem with the graphics card. The Heat blocks and chipset maybe overheating. Try fitting a special fan on the heatsink on the graphics card.

Other than that i don't know what else you could try, let us kno whow you get on with it.

should i get a new power supply? because my power supply maxes out at 250watts and where could i find this special fan?

well i just downloaded MBM5 and instantly when i started it the alarm went off because my CPU Socket is at 161 degrees farenheit... so do u still think it is my video card?

my CPU after an hour of playing MOHAA : http://www.freewebs.com/yung_buc/notgood.htm
(Using Hardware Monitor)

OK ... 70c is at the high end for most CPU's. However the behavior, as mentioned, would be a total system shutdown.

A more powerful PSU might help. You can find one that will fit your case. You just need to know what type of case that you have. If it is a full or mid-sized tower a standard ATX PSU will most likely fit. If it is a mini-ATX or flat type pizza box then you will need to find an appropriate PSU for the case.

Also a new heatsink/fan as you suggest is a good idea but this will require removing the old unit. Here is where you would clean the CPU then apply new thermal paste.

Application Instructions for Premium Silver Thermal Compound

the freezing and randomized un-prompted restarting problem is fixed and thats all i am worried about all i had to do was move the computer up 6 inches by putting BF2 disc case and BF2:SF disc case on top of each other and moving the tower on to them... only problem is that the tower sticks out of the desk so u have to be careful but it hasnt froze and restarted for like 3 hours now and if it does freeze and restart my personal computer tech. told me I don't need a new power supply unless im running two processors nd im gonna just need a new cpu heatsink and fan thing and maybe a pci slot vga cooler... or worst case scenario the processor is fried, but i came up with the 2 disc cases thing... hopefully this isnt a temporary fix and i just fry the processor