Over Heating

[Trunks]

Okay, well last night my computer turned off after over heating for the second time. I Just finished cleaning all the fans and Heat-sinks. I also added another fan onto my motherboard. I downloaded SpeedFan to check to see how hot everything is running and it says my Graphics card is running at 127 degrees Celsius. Which is impossible because I just had it out and cleaned it. Turned my computer on and opened SpeedFan within a minute or so. I know it's not running that hot. My Graphics card as a fan and a heat-sink built into it. It's a ATI Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro. Any reasoning on why it always says 127 degrees Celsius?

Anyway, I thought it was my Harddrive that's been over heating, It's pretty new and only happened since I got the new Harddrive. It happened twice now btw. Normally late at night around 1ish if the computer has been running all day. And I also can't turn it back on unless I unplug and plug it back in. Is that a safety feature? I'll have to check how hot it is throughout the day.

Edit: Actually I video card feels pretty hot. I doubt it's 127 degrees Celsius, but it's hot. Nothing else I can do to cool it off, it must just run really hot. I cleaned it out took off the Fan cover and cleaned the heat-sink on it.

I also have the side off my computer, It's been like that forever makes my room a lot hotter, but I'm sure it cools the computer off a little.

Also it normally shuts off after I've been playing a game for awhile. Yesterday I woke up at 9am and turned WoW on. Then Just left the game on the whole day. Then around 1:00am it shut off. So I'm guessing that's a big factor in why it over heated lol. If I don't have any big games opened my computer won't shut off. But still a computer should be able to play a game for that long. My bro had FF11 running for over a week non stop at a time. It's not good for it and his Processor died shortly after that, but it still should be able top run a game for that long.

[LiNuX]

if the card was truly 127 Celsius then I don't think the card would even function - I don't think speed fan is right and usually the computer turning off is an issue with your mobo or psu - the graphics card would just fail and give you graphics issues at first - does the pc just turn off? all lights go off and etc..or do you still have certain parts/lights on?

[Trunks]

The Power Supply has 8 LCD lights on it. That's the only thing that is on. It's like 650Watts and a few months old. I don't think it's my PSU. On the other hand my Mobo is close to 3 years old.

[LiNuX]

lcd lights? or led lights?

if your case has a power light and it shuts off then you could blame your motherboard although you can't be sure until you test out the other parts on other computers.

does it happen when you do anything in particular? or were the two times very random?

and what kind of a mobo do you have?

[Trunks]

lcd lights? or led lights?

if your case has a power light and it shuts off then you could blame your motherboard although you can't be sure until you test out the other parts on other computers.

does it happen when you do anything in particular? or were the two times very random?

and what kind of a mobo do you have?

led lights, don't know why I said lcd.

Well I don't remember what I was doing the first time it happened. But last night I was playing WoW and the game has been running for like 15 hours. I was playing it as it shut off so yea.

And my motherboard is a biostar P4M90-M7A ( That's what it says in Diagnostic Tools ) My box says it's a BIostar P4M900-M7 SE So I'm not sure what that is about. I know it's the right box, has the same specs and everything.

[LiNuX]

you have a higher chance in success of pointing out the problem if you point at the mobo than any other part - since your PSU seems strong enough - your mobo could just be worn out - i can't see how a GPU or hard drive would just shut off the entire computer - if the gpu or hdd failed you'd still have something on your screen or the power button would still be on because the motherboard controls that led light.

you can run a computer through bios without a hard drive and your mobo would still power the rest of the computer without a gpu and even though they could be doing this somehow, I personally wouldn't spend my time worrying about those two. and the mobo is the worst to fix or replace...you have to remove everything else from it - but for now you should leave it all alone nd see if it happens again and take note of what you're doing it when it happens.

[Trunks]

you have a higher chance in success of pointing out the problem if you point at the mobo than any other part - since your PSU seems strong enough - your mobo could just be worn out - i can't see how a GPU or hard drive would just shut off the entire computer - if the gpu or hdd failed you'd still have something on your screen or the power button would still be on because the motherboard controls that led light.

you can run a computer through bios without a hard drive and your mobo would still power the rest of the computer without a gpu and even though they could be doing this somehow, I personally wouldn't spend my time worrying about those two. and the mobo is the worst to fix or replace...you have to remove everything else from it - but for now you should leave it all alone nd see if it happens again and take note of what you're doing it when it happens.

I unplugged the led lights from my motherboard, pointless, just makes light while I'm sleeping. and the led lights on my power supply are not powered by my motherboard. The lights are inside the power supply it's self.

And yea, I rather it be a mobo problem. Everything else is to expensive to fix. A motherboard would only be 50 or 60 as a new Gcard and harddrive would be over a 100 ( to get close the same speed and size atleast ) I'll be using it till it dies though. And I'll start paying more attention to what's happening when it does it.

[LiNuX]

I unplugged the led lights from my motherboard, pointless, just makes light while I'm sleeping. and the led lights on my power supply are not powered by my motherboard. The lights are inside the power supply it's self.

And yea, I rather it be a mobo problem. Everything else is to expensive to fix. A motherboard would only be 50 or 60 as a new Gcard and harddrive would be over a 100 ( to get close the same speed and size atleast ) I'll be using it till it dies though. And I'll start paying more attention to what's happening when it does it.

i would hope your PSU led lights aren't powered by your mobo - the PSU provides power to the mobo which in turn provides power to most other things such as gpu and cpu (and the PSU helps with raw power from its own cables to hard drives and other optical drives)

but you should look for what exactly powers down - since you don't have your case leds connected to the motherboard anymore, you should try to pull it out and see if the cpu fan is still running or if the gpu is still functioning, etc. That'll help you figure out if its the mobo or something else.

[Trunks]

i would hope your PSU led lights aren't powered by your mobo - the PSU provides power to the mobo which in turn provides power to most other things such as gpu and cpu (and the PSU helps with raw power from its own cables to hard drives and other optical drives)

but you should look for what exactly powers down - since you don't have your case leds connected to the motherboard anymore, you should try to pull it out and see if the cpu fan is still running or if the gpu is still functioning, etc. That'll help you figure out if its the mobo or something else.

Yea, lol.. I was trying to figure out what you meant.

And oh, and the computer just acts like it does when it's off. My PSU leds are always on unless I unplug my computer. So when it turns off it just shuts down completely. Noting is running everything is off. ( except for the PSU led of course, It's on no matter what.)

[LiNuX]

so it does sound like a mobo issue - when the mobo fails, so does everything else - you should try to open your cd drive next time this happens just to check if it responds.

but I'm sticking with the mobo being the problem.

[Trunks]

so it does sound like a mobo issue - when the mobo fails, so does everything else - you should try to open your cd drive next time this happens just to check if it responds.

but I'm sticking with the mobo being the problem.

Nope nothing responds after it does that. I can't even push the power button to turn it on unless I unplug it and plug it back in.

[LiNuX]

Nope nothing responds after it does that. I can't even push the power button to turn it on unless I unplug it and plug it back in.

then that brings the psu back into the picture - the main connector could be just failing or power is just getting stuck somewhere - if it was the mobo, I don't know why you would have to unplug the wire for it to work again. weird issue. But maybe it won't happen a third time - keep your hopes up, it's the cheapest solution :)

[souljaa]

This happened to my brother as well..All he did was replaced the fan and it works perfect now! But I don't know lol..Should probably listen to Linux on this one 8-).

[Trunks]

then that brings the psu back into the picture - the main connector could be just failing or power is just getting stuck somewhere - if it was the mobo, I don't know why you would have to unplug the wire for it to work again. weird issue. But maybe it won't happen a third time - keep your hopes up, it's the cheapest solution :)

That's why I was thinking something was over heating and maybe the newer Hard Drives or something have a safety feature to shut down the computer. And the unplugging thing is just another safety feature (Computer companies are nice huh? making all these safety features ). I cleaned all the fans if that the problem and added one, so yea. We'll see.

[LiNuX]

hard drives with the power to shut off computers? hard drives are for storage only so I highly doubt that's it - when you run programs, they run on your ram and when you save them they are just stored on your hdd so I highly doubt it's the hdd.

the unplugging may be a safety thing for the mobo - the PSU doesn't lose power as you've stated but the mobo may refuse to accept power unless it's fully shut off and then reintroduced I guess - but you can't really tell without testing each part individually.

If it does happen for a third time I'd recommend you switch up your PSU if you can with another computer's and trying again - I still think it's between the PSU and Mobo - I've ruled out everything else because these are the only two with the capabilities of shutting down the entire machine like that. It may not even be from overheating - could be just random malfunctions - that's why it's a good idea to pay attention to the activities when it happens.

Hopefully it doesn't happen for a 3rd time....I hate cleaning my pc (mostly because I hate shutting it down) but I did it last week and vacuumed out a lot of dust and it was only like 4 months since the last time I did that.

[Trunks]

I know lol, I was just joking around trying to raise my hopes.

Well sadly the next PSU I have it 350watts my old 500watt died. 350watts won't power my Graphics card. The reason I think it's over heating is because it's always late at night after my computers been on for more than 12 hours. plus the Gcard feels really hot and so does the HD, I know they are supposed to run hot.

[LiNuX]

I'm glad i can level your hopes again..

and overheating is really a hard thing to point out because you really have no way of knowing until you look at the physical damages - overheating causes physical wear which slowly kills the part and you can't really conclude with that until you see it for yourself and sometimes the damage is microscopic and for computer parts, it's huge.

And I leave my pc on for months at a time, I've touched my GPU, HDD, and RAM shortly after playing games and I know it can get scorching but the parts are made to withstand a lot of heat so that they don't start melting at any point.

and since you seem to have installed a new fan it would help getting the hot air out of the case, but you'll have to wait for a 3rd outage (hopefully it won't happen)

[Trunks]

Lol, yea.. Just had a blue screen an hour ago. I changed my computer so it shuts off my harddrive after 20 minutes. Just trying not to strain the parts so much. I came back an hour or so after I walked away and I wiggle the mouse and my screen turns back on. Then I see a lovely blue screen. No idea what that is from, but yea. That's def. not the first time I've got a blue screen using windows though. Atleast it didn't just shut off though.

[LiNuX]

a blue screen maybe because your hard drive couldn't turn back on - and by turning of hard drives, you made changes to the power saving settings? I never found that to be efficient and if you don't use your computer for anything, your hard drive doesn't get used anyway - it only strains if you're pulling files from it or putting stuff in it - like viewing a web page - it saves images and other cache into your temporary folder. If you just leave everything alone, your hard drive will be like it's turned off but it'll still be physically hot because either way it has to provide the operating system stuff to the rest of the PC.

that's probably what went wrong with the blue screen - and I haven't found any of those power saving options to do any good - the monitor is probably the best way to save power, hard drives don't use a lot of juice, not as much as the other parts in your case.

but you can test it again i guess - set it to turn off the hard drive in less time and wait another few minutes and try again - if it happens again then you know the fault is with the option.

I'm hungry now..

[Trunks]

a blue screen maybe because your hard drive couldn't turn back on - and by turning of hard drives, you made changes to the power saving settings? I never found that to be efficient and if you don't use your computer for anything, your hard drive doesn't get used anyway - it only strains if you're pulling files from it or putting stuff in it - like viewing a web page - it saves images and other cache into your temporary folder. If you just leave everything alone, your hard drive will be like it's turned off but it'll still be physically hot because either way it has to provide the operating system stuff to the rest of the PC.

that's probably what went wrong with the blue screen - and I haven't found any of those power saving options to do any good - the monitor is probably the best way to save power, hard drives don't use a lot of juice, not as much as the other parts in your case.

but you can test it again i guess - set it to turn off the hard drive in less time and wait another few minutes and try again - if it happens again then you know the fault is with the option.

I'm hungry now..

Yep, changed power settings. It only did it one time, so it's fine now I guess. Time to play some WoW I'll leave it on all day again to see if it shuts off. Because it didn't shut off yesterday when I didn't play it at all really.

[Trunks]

Well, it just did it again. Was playing WoW and it shut off.... I unplugged it and plugged it back in, turned it on. It came up and said Disk Boot failure. So I just restarted my computer and it loaded up. Sounds like my hard-drive is about to die... Awesome

[LiNuX]

sounds like an OS corruption - put your OS Cd back in and try to repair it

i still don't see how a hard drive would shut off the entire computer...unusual case - and it seems it happens when you play WoW. Since I'm not a fan of the game, I'm going to go ahead and put some blame on that game. :)

[Trunks]

sounds like an OS corruption - put your OS Cd back in and try to repair it

i still don't see how a hard drive would shut off the entire computer...unusual case - and it seems it happens when you play WoW. Since I'm not a fan of the game, I'm going to go ahead and put some blame on that game. :)

If it does it again, I'll switch out the wires and put the disk in. I never tried to repair windows, does it still work with a illegal copy of windows? lol. And I think it only happens when I play WoW is because it's normally running haha.

[LiNuX]

I won't comment about the illegal windows copy

and...good luck - I've fixed OS corruptions in the past with windows repair but the most effective way is to just reinstall. i hate doing that though, i don't like starting fresh

[Exodyus]

No, sir.

With Microsoft's Genuine Updater that stops the major updates to your PC, as well, it wont let you use a repair disk (disc) from a Valid copy.

You're SOL.

If it's an OS problem, I'd implore you to find another copy like you have before and back all your stuff up to an external HD.

[Trunks]

I'm not going to reformat unless I absolutely have to lol.

And yea, I didn't think so. And haha my other copy is called Mr. bit torrent

Im just going to hope that a wire has a short in it, and just isn't picking up the hard-drive. I like that idea a lot better

[Trunks]

Okay awesome, it keeps doing it again.

It seems that it only does it when I play WoW... Any idea on why it only does it while playing WoW?

Also, I found out when it does "Shut off" or what ever is doing, A light where the either-net cable is plugged in stays on. If my computer is off, then the light should go off too. I tried holding in the power button for like 15 seconds, pushing the reset button. I have to unplug the computer to get it to go back on.

Looks like I want be playing WoW anymore lol...


Edit: Just switched out Memory sticks. Still crashed, so it's either my processor, motherboard or video card. Hopefully it's the video card..... I can't switch out my processor, no other motherboard has the same socket as my CPU. Except my dads dell, but ... You know how dells are.

[LiNuX]

it's telling you to stop playing wow.

and do you mean "Ethernet" cable? if yes, then it necessarily doesn't have to turn off when the computer is off. I rarely turn off my computer but if I remember correctly, mine doesn't shut off as long as the power supply is plugged in and is in the "on " position (not the computer, the PSU only).

And I've had plenty of GPU problems in the past - even had GPU's burn out but no issue turned off the computer like that- the CPU and Mobo are two possibilities - I've seen and diagnosed issues with both and I can tell you that they affect your computer's ability to fully power on and remain powered on.

You could try to get a cheap CPU and replace it with your current one - it could help you figure it out - the mobo is the hardest and worst part to get diseased like this...you're just better off not playing the game at all.

[Trunks]

yea I meant Ethernet Cable, but oh, I guess I never payed attention to that lol.

Well, I would prefer it to be my Motherboard over CPU. My CPU is a 3.4 dual core. It's probably twice as much as the Motherboard. Or hopefully it's WoW that is messed up, a lot cheaper lol

I just took it apart cleaned all the dust out around my CPU and in the Enter ( is enter the right word? or is it spelled Inter? lol ) Cooler.

I'm still hoping it's a over heating problem. If it still does it, I'll update my Video Card drivers, because the ATI cards suck, the newest update makes my FPS go down in games, not even kidding. So I don't have the newest version, but it still use to run WoW fine and it runs on every other game fine. Maybe a new patch screwed it up? I dunno, will find out.

Not playing WoW isn't an option lol. Also, if the computer is about to die, why let it linger? I rather the part just die, preferably Mother Board, it's the oldest part probably. It only allows 4gig of total Memory. Plus, It won't support the new Nivida cards. So if the MotherBoard croaks then I'll try and find one with the same socket CPU and one that supports the newer Nivida cards. Mine currently has PCI-E X16, but the chipset won't work with Nivida cards.

Anyway, Wish me luck