Hi,I registered an account in this forum in hope that the members could help me. I have a computer which overheats,and shuts down. I have to manually reboot it,so I don't think it's a graphic's card error. While my computer is idle,I get around 35-50 degrees,usually about 42-45. I've read the average should be around 30,so it's unusual. When I play any game (In general) my computer (generally) decides to overheat (usually heralded by my CPU/harddrive whatever it is called going louder and louder) until my computer suddenly shuts off. I find this to be very inconvinient,especially when I'm doing homework and I lose all my files. Since I problably won't get new fans installed or anything,I was wandering what I could do to help my CPU cool down. I might be able to get this "thermal paste",if only someone could tell me where (in general) I can get some and where I should apply it.

Thanks in Advance,
Charlie


EDIT: I found out some things that might help: I have 512 MBs of ram,which a little low end these days,and whenever my Computer is loud and noisy,when I try to Control alt delete,it says it's using "100% of CPU" I'm not a techy person,but I assume that's ram. Also,I am sure it is NOT a virus,or my graphics card. It is something overheating in my computer,could not be my ram. I have adequete air flow,but I should try and dust.

Hi Charlie,

When you get the problem, you are able to use [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] to launch the Task Manager so that means that the processor (CPU) hasn't actually crashed (otherwise you wouldn't be able to open anything new). However, the processor running at 100%, which means that it is going absolutely flat out so any new requests will take much longer and the PC may appear to have frozen. Also, a processor running at 100% will get much hotter. Processors do run at 100% from time to time but usually only for a couple of seconds. If yours is doing it for quite a while, then that suggests that an instruction from some software (or hardware drivers) has told the processor to deal with something that has totally confused it. This might mean a faulty processor but it is usually a problem in the software. Do you know of any software installations or updates that you did (e.g. anti-virus software, etc) just before the problems started?

Incidentally, this is not RAM.

Thanks for the reply. Yes,I have various anti-virus,registry scanners etc programs on my computer,but I have made sure they don't conflict (At least,shouldn't) and commonly,my computer freezes when it is running at 100%,so I Control-Alt-Delete the task I am trying to run. But sometimes,it is running at 100% (Heralded by a loud noise from my processor or something)
And it suddenly shuts down,and does not reboot by itself (Not graphics card error) Generally,I am looking for the problem,and a way to fix it.

The clear problems are:

1. Loud noise
2. Freezing computer
3. Crashing computer

Thanks for your reply,I look forward to another one

Check Device Manager (right-click My Computer and go to Properties, then Device Manager or Hardware) to see if any hardware items are highlighted with a warning symbol to indicate a problem.

If that all checks out OK, run Windows Update and check the hardware drivers section to see if there are any updated drivers available. If there are, download and install them all.

Let us know whether or not this makes any difference