CPU Temp and PC Shut Down Issues

Hey All,

I am hoping you can help as you have done many times before. I built a PC for my kids last December and it has been running fine until about a month ago. Last month it started this annoying habit of shutting down by itself with no error messages and no reboot. Sometimes it would last 5 minutes, sometimes 3 hours.

Now, I thought overheating of the cpu might be the culprit and I took a look at their case...all fans appeared to be running fine however there was a lot of dust. I checked the CPU temp listed in the bios and it said 76C...my son was playing a game just before I checked so I guess that might be considered a load temp...although, I did reboot and stuff so it may have dropped some before I got to it (not sure how that works exactly...or how quickly the temp drops).

Then I did a major dust cleaning of the case, the fans, the components, the intakes, etc. When I booted it back up the temp was around 50C and then climbed up to around 60C within 2 or 3 minutes.

Any thoughts? Is the shut down related to the temps? Whether it is or isn't, are the temps still too high? What should an average no load temp be (in the 30's?)?

Any other ideas about the shutting down?

Here are the particulars on the PC:

CASE: Raidmax Smilodon
Mobo: Asus P5K-E/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Pro
PSU: P&C S61EPS 610W Continuous @ 40°C EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC
RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
GPU: EVGA 512-P3-N802-A3 GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
HDD: Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (PRT 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
OS: Windows XP w/SP2C OEM

I am using the Intel stock HSF and the case's stock fans (1X120 Front intake; 2x80 Side intake; 1X80 Rear out)

Thanks in advance for your help!


13Bravo
USHA!

Thanks for the reply fatty35! So even if the cpu temp is not the cause of the shut downs, you think the temps noted above are too high?

It would also be good to get some 'real' temp readings in Windows. Use a program like Speedfan to monitor temperatures at idle and at load.

76c in BIOS is way high, and after you cleaned everything, seeing it go from 50 - 60 in 2 or 3 minutes in BIOS is still a concern, in my opinion.

As fatty recommended, remove the heatsink and clean its base and the surface of the CPU heat spreader, reapply your thermal paste and reseat the heatsink. The Xiggy s1283 with its bolt through kit retention bracket is also a good recommendation. It would give you peace of mind over the stock HSF with its inadequate push pins.

For the e6750 at stock speeds, 76c just in BIOS is way high. From everything you've told us, I'd bet the shutdowns were caused by overheating.