Grrrr, Some Help Please!

[Drunkagain]

OK, I built a new pc in late spring and have recentely started running into some trouble. There are teo seperate problems that are probably related.

1) - My pc has started lately to shut off and go into some kind of an alarm mode. The only thing I can do is to turn off the switch on the power supply to get it to stop. It done it a few times when playing games and a couple of times I've just walked into the room and found the alarm going off. This is usually been in ther afternoon on hot days.

2) - The second problem is that the pc will reboot for no apparent reason. This usually happens when I'm playing a game. as a matter of fact I think it's only ahppened so far when playing games.

I suspected maybe it's a heat problem because I know this pc runs hotter than my old one. Seems to stay aorund 52-55C. This is hotter than I'd like but I didn't think it would be hot enough to cause any problems. I alos thought I had maybe put to much Arctic Silver 3 on the core so I took it off the F/H, cleaned it up and put a new extremely thin layer on.

I'm using a Thermal Take Smart Fan and a Thermal Right SK-8 heatsink.

Should I have the fan blowing onto the heatsink or away from it?

My system,

AMD Barton 2500
Abit NF7-S
512 Kingston HyperX pc2500 ram
Geforce 4 4200
Abit 480watt power supply

Nothing is overclocked. Any help at all please?

Thank You.

 

[pIII_Man]

Sounds like either power supply or heat...try to leave the case open and see if that helps...

For that heatsink if would be best to blow down onto the core...

Those are pretty hot for idle temps

So easy to fry yet tastes so good...
Silicon: The other, other, other white meat

 

[Drunkagain]

Bump, anyone else?

 

[pIII_Man]

abit 480 watt powersupply? are you sure that is right?

I think everyone else on this forum will say that this sounds like a powersupply/heat problem...these are clasic signs...can you give me your temperatures and voltages

So easy to fry yet tastes so good...
Silicon: The other, other, other white meat

 

[Drunkagain]

It's n Antec True 480. Sorry about that I typed Abit by mistake. I haven't changed the voltage at all, so everything should be default. The temps I get using the app that came with the mobo shows the temps at around 52C when idle and 55/56C after playing games for awhile. That dosen't seem hot enough to be causing problems even though I'd prefer it a bit cooler.

 

[pIII_Man]

do you have any case fans...because that does seem pretty hot for a barton at stock speeds...

try dropping the cpus multiplyer to see if it runs better at a slower speed...just to see if it is possibly heat related...drop it by 2-2.5x

So easy to fry yet tastes so good...
Silicon: The other, other, other white meat

 

[Drunkagain]

OK, I just got home and turned the pc on for the first time since I cleaned up the cpu earlier and re-applied the thermal paste and that seems to have made a big difference. I'm now running at about 42C at idle. I haven't had a chance to run any games yet, so I don't know if this has taken care of the problem or not but I'm happy for the drop in temp.

"do you have any case fans...because that does seem pretty hot for a barton at stock speeds..."

Yeah, I have four. One intake and three outake.

Thanks for the help by the way pIII_Man, I really appreciate it.