GPU overheating? help!

[Chocolater2]

Hey guys, I have a question that REALLY needs answering. I have an HP media center 7360n and the thing has been constantly, randomly freezing and restarting for a while now. Even under no load it freezes. Recently I've done a system destruct and crossed my fingers it would solve the issue, which did rather the opposite. I decided to download "speedfan" and see if its overheating, which I highly doubted but the consistent "freeze and restart" made sense; the gpu was clocking in at almost 80 degrees celcius and so was the CPU (until I reapplied thermalpaste). I've tried a few other things to attempt at fixing this poor guy, which would be: reapplying thermal paste to the heatsink/cpu and running the system in safemode, then running CCcleaner to clean the registry in case it was a buggy file (or two). I also ran speedfan whilst in safemode and my gpu andeverything else was clocking in just fine (the gpu and cpu said 0 celcius; spot on haha). After cleaning the registry I allowed the pc to run for a while to see if it would freeze again, which it didn't. I rebooted the computer normally and ran speedfan, and the gpu, again, clocked in at about 80 degrees...someone please help me figure out what's going on. Also, when I run task manager, I notice the system usage will jump from an average 5% usage to 50%...odd because its not being used lol

 

[mauller07]

if you did not install windows yourself, uninstall all hp software from the computer, a lot of preinstalled OEM software can cause major problems for little benefit as windows tends to already do the majority of the features just without shiny buttons.

also make sure to run the computer in low power mode to allow the cpu to throttle down and make sure you hace intake fans at the front and exhaust fans at the back to so you have good airflow.

 

[Chocolater2]

Well thing is that this computer is seven years old. Its ran fine up until a year ago (the cpu heatsink was clogged and caked with dust, as it always made the fans cut on loudly, so I cleaned that out recently). Also, how do I turn my pc on low power mode?

 

[mauller07]

go into control panel and into power options.

it could be a piece of software causing problems, what antivirus do you use as some antivirus can cause the computer to become very laggy.

 

[Chocolater2]

Well none right now; I just did a system destruct and left everything off of my pc, except malwarebytes. I redownloaded that...:C I feel like it definately is a program issue because it was all fine in safe mode...

 

[Chocolater2]

There's no way to put the computer into low power mode. I use xp btw

 

[mauller07]

if it worked fine in safe mode then look at what is installed on your pc, remove anything with toolbar in the name if any are installed and any running applications you do not know or use.

also remove all the hp software if it is not already.

 

[Chocolater2]

I removed all software and most of the startup programs. The computer freezes more often when I play games such as killing floor (in the lowest settings) and each time I boot, there is a shorter time until the pc freezes. Could it be my gpu that's dying, or the hdd?