Pc overheating/turning off after 4 minutes of gameplay

[pcnoob67]

Hi all 1st time on this forum

I have a new pc with all the bells and whistles but when I play a game for about 4 mins it overheats/shutsdown!

I had no idea what was going on until a friend mentioned that it might be overheating.

I took the side off and put a fan beside it blowing into it.

Sure enough it stopped shutting down.

I know that isn't good enough so I was wondering what I could do to stop it from overheating.

Better fans? Better CPU cooler? RAM cooler?

I'm thinking of going down to my local pc shop and buying this:

http://www.msy.com.a...?productId=1342

It's probably cheap and nasty but along as it does the job. Will it thought? Is that the problem?

These are my idle temps.

http://imageshack.us/f/51/pctemp111.png/

My Specs:

i7 870 2.93 ghz

HIS IceQX 6950 1GB

4GB 1600mhz RAM

Thermaltake Armor+MX

I'll try and edit my post with temps after 2 mins of gaming.

Thanks to anyone who reply's, this problem is really starting to annoy me.

Regards,

Sam

PS: I have no idea where to post this question sorry

 

[tinmann]

Your Cpu temps idle are high, I can't open the link to the cooler your talking about but I'd take the cpu cooler off clean it and re-apply some good thermal compound. I don't know whi=ch you prefer but I still use Arctic Cooling MX-4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186038
No curing time and it's non-electrical conductive.
If you are looking at replacing you cpu cooler you can't go wrong with the
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

 

[Engima]

Can you re-seat the heatsink? I believe it could a bad seal or there isn't adequate thermal compound.

 

[wurkfur]

Your CPU should look like that when it's overclocked and running at full tilt. Your heatsink isn't properly installed for sure.

 

[pcnoob67]

Your Cpu temps idle are high, I can't open the link to the cooler your talking about but I'd take the cpu cooler off clean it and re-apply some good thermal compound. I don't know whi=ch you prefer but I still use Arctic Cooling MX-4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186038
No curing time and it's non-electrical conductive.
If you are looking at replacing you cpu cooler you can't go wrong with the
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

I'm thinking of getting:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103064

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106143

Thoughts?

 

[Paperdoc]

You may be missing what posters are saying. You ask whether your problem is that the CPU cooler you have is poorly DESIGNED and incapable of providing adequate cooling. The answers are all saying that your temps and symptoms are so far out of ordinary that they strongly indicate the CPU cooler is poorly INSTALLED - NOT poor design. It may not be fastened down correctly, or the cooling paste may be poorly installed. One item I don't see mentioned that may be important if you did your own installation: many CPU coolers have the thermal paste already installed on them and covered with a plastic film to protect it. That film MUST be removed before the cooler is put down over the CPU. Did you do that?

 

[pcnoob67]

You may be missing what posters are saying. You ask whether your problem is that the CPU cooler you have is poorly DESIGNED and incapable of providing adequate cooling. The answers are all saying that your temps and symptoms are so far out of ordinary that they strongly indicate the CPU cooler is poorly INSTALLED - NOT poor design. It may not be fastened down correctly, or the cooling paste may be poorly installed. One item I don't see mentioned that may be important if you did your own installation: many CPU coolers have the thermal paste already installed on them and covered with a plastic film to protect it. That film MUST be removed before the cooler is put down over the CPU. Did you do that?

I have had this pc for about a year now. At the time I didn't know how to build a pc so I got my local pc shop to build it for me. If the cooler wasn't installed correctly it's not my fault. The cooler is put on properly. Is the paste put on properly? I don't know. I turned the CPU's fan speed to turbo in the bios it gets around 2800 rpm, before it had around 2000.

 

[pcnoob67]

What should I do? Take the cooler off and apply paste?

 

[wurkfur]

See if the cooling fins are covered in dust and use compressed air to blow it out.

OR

The fan may be going dead. If that is the case, you need to replace it. The first CPU cooler you just posted would be a decent replacement.

 

[pcnoob67]

See if the cooling fins are covered in dust and use compressed air to blow it out.

OR

The fan may be going dead. If that is the case, you need to replace it. The first CPU cooler you just posted would be a decent replacement.

Cleaned it out with a can of compressed air and a cable tie.

Idle temps.

http://imageshack.us/f/802/pctemp11.png/

GPU temps are high too. Is 46c atm.

Going to play, see if it shuts down.

EDIT:

Crashed after 4 minutes of playing NTW.

What should I do now? Take the cooler off and clean it then apply some paste?

 

[Engima]

45C for a 69xx series card is pretty normal. I would definitely remove the cooler and see if there is any thermal paste present on the CPU/heatsink or if it has dried up and cracked. Use a decent thermal paste too.

 

[Raiddinn]

It helps to tell us early on as much as you know, so people are less likely to make incorrect assessments.

It is easy for people to assume you just got the stuff today if you don't say you had it for a year already and it was working fine the whole time. The likely cause of the same problem under both circumstances is potentially quite different.

If you know anything else you aren't saying that may relate to the problem or something that may not even relate to it but you just happen to remember it recently, feel free to mention it. The more you tell us the faster we can help you.

Now then...

In my experience, if the thermal paste application is good enough for 11 months its probably good enough for another 11. That doesn't mean that this can't be the problem, but I think it makes it less likely.

If you want to thoroughly remove the old and reapply now just in case, I can't fault you for that.

However, I think it may help if you try to play the game for 3 min and 30 sec and then switch out and see what your temperatures look like.

Feel free to pause whatever game and alt tab out too. A lot of games still think they are being played if they are paused in the background so it will continue putting load on the graphics card and CPU.

You may be able to sit there and watch the temps leading up to the crash from outside the game.

I would like you to try that and tell me which temps are the ones that are constantly moving north leading up to the crash time.

 

[pcnoob67]

45C for a 69xx series card is pretty normal. I would definitely remove the cooler and see if there is any thermal paste present on the CPU/heatsink or if it has dried up and cracked. Use a decent thermal paste too.

45C is the idle for the GPU when it rebooted. I was just taking note of that as I thought it was high for the GPU.

65C is the idle for the CPU .

Would the Arctic Silver 5 be a good choice? It's 9$ at my pc shop.

 

[Engima]

$9 for AS5 is actually cheaper than what I got it for. It's also a great choice unless they also carry the ceramique version of Arctic Silver.

 

[pcnoob67]

It helps to tell us early on as much as you know, so people are less likely to make incorrect assessments.

It is easy for people to assume you just got the stuff today if you don't say you had it for a year already and it was working fine the whole time. The likely cause of the same problem under both circumstances is potentially quite different.

If you know anything else you aren't saying that may relate to the problem or something that may not even relate to it but you just happen to remember it recently, feel free to mention it. The more you tell us the faster we can help you.

Now then...

In my experience, if the thermal paste application is good enough for 11 months its probably good enough for another 11. That doesn't mean that this can't be the problem, but I think it makes it less likely.

If you want to thoroughly remove the old and reapply now just in case, I can't fault you for that.

However, I think it may help if you try to play the game for 3 min and 30 sec and then switch out and see what your temperatures look like.

Feel free to pause whatever game and alt tab out too. A lot of games still think they are being played if they are paused in the background so it will continue putting load on the graphics card and CPU.

You may be able to sit there and watch the temps leading up to the crash from outside the game.

I would like you to try that and tell me which temps are the ones that are constantly moving north leading up to the crash time.

I'm new to this whole pc help forum thing. I mainly hang out at the steam forums so sorry if it's hard to understand my post's.

I started Arma2 up and played the benchmark I then alt-tabed out and opened up CPUID HM to look at my CPU temps. They didn't really increase some got up to 70c but they never went above 70 or below 60. I knew that wasn't right so I went back to the game and it had paused when I alt-tabed. I'll try with a mission and get back to you.

EDIT:

It seems to turn off when it hits around 70+ I was playing GTA4 for about 3 mins I then alt-tabed and saw that most were high 60's and 1 was 70. I cranked the graphic settings up to see if that would do anything and 30 secs after doing that it turned off.

 

[pcnoob67]

$9 for AS5 is actually cheaper than what I got it for. It's also a great choice unless they also carry the ceramique version of Arctic Silver.

I can get the Ceramique 2.7g for 6$.