Computer failure heat related?

[awray]

My specs are:

EVGA nForce 790i SLI FTW Motherboard, 775 socket
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 Processor
1 tb hard drive
4 gb ddr3 RAM 1337MHz
GeForce 260 GPU

I've been having computer problems that I've never seen or heard about before, so I'm appealing to the forums for help.

My computer shut down one night, and wouldn't start again. When I attempted to start it, I heard the short, everything-is-okay confirmation beep, but then the problems started. The text for the bios showed up incredibly slowly, a letter at a time. Shortly after this, the computer would simply shut down. I initial reaction was (for whatever reason) that this is a heating problem, as dust and internal temperature have constantly been a problem for my computer.

So I replaced the heat-sink and a fan as they both were pretty cheap. So I now have Corsair H50 liquid cooling system for my CPU. I noticed, however, in my experimentation that my CPU heated up very, very quickly. I'm not sure if this is common place for CPUs, but we're talking cool to too hot to touch in less than 20 seconds.

After installing the new heat sink, i tried to start my computer again, but to the same, exact issue is occuring, except that the BIOS text is showing up less quickly, but the computer is staying on longer.

Am I right to think that this is a CPU issue? Is there anything I can do to test out that hypothesis before purchasing a new CPU?

Thanks so much for your time and your ideas.

PS I cannot enter BIOS or setup, though I haven't attempted to run a boot disk, but I don't think that I would be able to get that far.

 

[ibemad]

I know that on our REALLY old computer, the letters didn't just show up one by one, they actually showed in blue, purple, then grey. It was pretty funny. Oh, and it happened because we had usb stuff plugged in.

 

[jonpaul37]

Power supply issue would be the first place i look. Please tell what powersupply you have, brand & model # please.

 

[awray]

My power supply is a Ultra LSP750 750-Watt Power Supply.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

What does your BIOS temperatures read out as?

 

[ibemad]

Try unplugging EVERYTHING. The only things you should leave plugged in is your keyboard and your monitor.

If that doesn't work:
Unplug your keyboard as well.

If that doesn't work:
Unplug everything internal (hard drive(s), cd drive(s), graphics cards(ONLY if you have onboard VGA you can work off of) sound cards, etc.)

 

[moody89]

I would also suspect a faulty PSU at this point but the fact that your CPU got so hot so quickly is worrying. A CPU should never be too hot to touch! Is this issue sorted now?

As IBeMad suggested, remove everything that isn't essential. You only need the bare minimum of motherboard, processor and RAM to POST. If you do have onboard graphics support switch to this and remove your Graphics card too.

Try booting with one memory stick at a time in each and every slot available on your motherboard. It is a long process but it will help discover if you have a bad RAM stick.

If you still have no luck try a different PSU if you can get your hands on one. It doesn't matter if its not the same wattage since you only need to boot with the bare minimum.