Computer restarting...overheating...new problem now?

[Kalisperas]

For a while new, my computer has been restarting by itself occasionally. At first, I thought it had to do with the power in my house, as it seems to spike and dip quite often. When it started doing this, it would happen at the same time the TV would turn itself off (along with the lights flickering), but I noticed soon after that it was doing it at other times too. It seems to happen at random times, regardless of what I'm doing. I was planning on getting a UPS, thinking that fluxuations(sp?) in the power were causing the problem, but today I checked the internal heat level, and saw that my CPU was at 75c. I installed PC Alert to monitor the temp, and it remained around 74-78c. I wasn't doing anything very processer intensive at the time, just downloading a file and browsing some websites. PC Alert had my CPU Highest Limitation set to 75c, so I turned it up to 80, and it hasn't restarted since then. However, this temp seems rather high to me. Am I mistaken? I turned on the A/C in the room, and the temp eventually got down to 70c. Is this too high? And if so, could this be causing my restarts? I was under the impression that if the CPU reached the limit temp, the machine would shut down, not restart. I'm running an Athlon XP 2000+ on and MSI KT3 Ultra-2, using the stock HSF.

Also, should I be concerned about these power spikes? I'm using a pretty cheesy power supply (350w made by some generic manufacturer), and about a week ago, the surge protecter powering the computer got smoked. I bought a more robust strip for it this time, but now I'm rather apprehensive. Would a UPS protect the machine any better than a surge protecter from random spikes and dips in the power?

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[PhoenixDarkstar]

You may have just been downloading a file and browsing some websites... but your computer was doing a dos attack on microsoft!

 

[charlie21]

A UPS would probably provide you with a cleaner power source, but I don't think that's your problem. That temp is WAY too high. High temperatures can lead to system instablilty, like the reboots you're experiencing. My parent's computer started rebooting like this, turns out the processor was idling at 75C courtesy of the cat hair that was clogging up the heatsink. One can of compressed air later, everything was back running stable.

 

[modedepe]

Yeah, those temps are way too high. Definitley clean out the hsf as was already suggested, and you may need to add more case fans. How many are you currently running? You might also want to replace that generic psu. Those can always lead to system instabilities.

 

[Kalisperas]

Sounds like I'll be picking up some compressed air tomorrow. I'm currently running 3 case fans, one intake on front, one intake on the side, and one output on the back, so I don't think that's the problem. But my HSF has never been cleaned, so I'll give that a shot.

Thanks!

 

[mechBgon]

It might also be that you've got your stock heatsink/fan unit on backwards. The underside is notched, and the notch needs to be matched up with the raised, solid-plastic end of the CPU socket.

Be aware that the stock phase-change thermal patch is a one-use-only item. It's intended to melt to fit the gap between the CPU and heatsink, and if you find that your heatsink is installed backwards, you'll want some high-quality thermal grease on hand to replace the stock thermal patch with.

 

[Kalisperas]

The HSF is on correctly, I made double certain of it when I put the machine together. I got some compressed air, cleaned everything out (that was quite a cloud of dust), but now there's something else. Not sure if it's a problem, so I thought I'd ask. I started the machine back up after cleaning it, and it's now at 52c, but it's only been running for about 10 minutes now. But I checked in MSI Fuzzy Logic and WCPUID, and now my Athlon 2000 (1.666 ghz) is running at 1.730 ghz. I've never told Fuzzy Logic to overclock, and last night before the cleaning, it reported 1.666 ghz. I've never really intended to overclock, so I don't know much about it, but the display in Fuzzy Logic reads "12.5 x 138.4 1730 mhz". I'm afraid if it continues to run at this clock speed, having cleaned my stock HSF might not matter much if the processer is putting out more heat than before.

Any ideas as to why this is happening?

 

[Kalisperas]

Well, I shut the computer off for a while, and when I started it back up, my clock speed had gone down to 1675 mhz. It's been running for a couple hours now, and when I checked it just now, it had gone down further to 1658 mhz, below the stock speed! Above the clock speed it now reads "12.5 x 132.6". I've seen my clock speed many times since I built the comp, and it's always been at 1666 mhz. Even last night it remained constant, as I saw it while monitoring my temps. Could just cleaning the dust out of my HSF have caused this behavior?

Any ideas?