Computer keeps overheating and then restarting, usually ends up stuck at BIOS screen. Please Help! :)

maxisamoose

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Dec 11, 2014
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Hi guys. I'm running Windows 8.1 and have been having some problems lately with my computer. Here are my specs: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/bXkHrH (plus an Nvidia GTX 570) So lately my computer has becoming really loud, even after I clean it the fans seem like they're working on overtime. I was playing a video game with my friends (world of warcraft, not very intensive) and after a few hours the fans in my computer would suddenly become extremely loud and then the whole thing would shut down. I booted my comp. and I was stuck on the bios. My keyboard would not work when I tried to press any of the keys. I fixed it by letting it cool and turning it on later. Fastforward a week and the same thing happens again. This time, my computer is being a lot more stubborn to make it past the bios screen. Since none of the keys are working I try plugging my keyboard into several different USB slots in the back of my computer. I reset my computer, plug it in a slot andddd......nothing. I finally plugged it into a 3.0 slot and all of a sudden my computer went past the BIOS screen and they keys on my keyboard lit up again. So my question is, what is causing this? I plan on upgrading my computer soon so I am really keen to know what specific computer part is causing this problem? I think it might be a CPU problem, overheating or something like that. Here's a look at my temperatures (http://i.imgur.com/Hitsrjo.png) they seem pretty normal to me too. Now it's at the point where anytime I run a game longer than 30 minutes, my computer will freak out, the fans go on full blast for a few seconds and then the whole thing shuts off. Any help would be greatly appreciated guys. I'm feeling like an overworked college student right now, so I might have missed something stupid. Thanks so much and thanks for taking the time to read this!
 
Temps in the screen shot look normal (was that under load? or idle? Load temps are more helpful). A Sandy Bridge CPU can hit 85-90*c before they start having issues, and they will generally throttle the system before resetting it causing performance issues rather than a hard reset.

It sounds more like an overclock/stability issue or your GPU.

A few things to try:
Set everything back down to stock settings to get you through finals week. Just get into bios and load default settings. This should temporarily fix things and get you limping along for a bit.
When you have a chance to work on it then use some testing software to find the problem. Remove the GPU and run Intel Burn Test for a few hours and see if it happens. Plug the GPU back in and run something like Furmark for a while. Shouldn't be a ram issue, but it does not hurt to run Windows Memory Diagnostic as well (it is a quick test anyways).
Next set your OC and repeat the process until you find which test consistently pushes your computer over the edge.

If I were a betting man I would guess it is your GPU. I love my little old 570, but the stock cooler on that thing was horrible (and loud) before replacing it with a Zalman cooler. If you have been running a stock card with an OC for the last 3+ years then it may be worn out.

All of your other parts are pretty nice, they could be the problem, but it would be surprising.

At any rate, hopefully it is the GPU as Intel has not come out with anything significantly faster than Sandy Bridge yet (disappointing!). If you can limp allong until new chips come out that can use DDR4 and SATAe then you may be pleased with the result as you are not going to get much gains moving from a 2xxx series chip to a new one. On the GPU side however there are some big improvements that have been made... plus the 1.25GB of ram on the 570 is a little anemic by today's standards. I tend to run out of vRAM long before my card maxes out on GPU power.

Anywho, hope that helps!
 

stormflakes

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Jun 6, 2014
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Have you tried running a stress-test?

A few year back i had the same problem.with a laptop. It magically went away after a month. Problem was i just left it on my desk with the sun on it all day. That in combination with a taxing game gave troubles.

I now work from the shades and all is fine.
 

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