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CPU Temp causing crash? Suggestions?

S

SanDiegoPC

Senior member
My system is basically stable as a rock and has been for two years since I built it. It's a P4 3.0 with an ASUS P4P 800E motherboard, overclocked ten % to 3.3Ghz. Nvidia 5200 video, 128mb and a pair of 160G WD drives in a mirror raid. There's 2.0G of Crucial ram in the machine.

I do a lot of digital imaging and graphics work with it and I leave the PC on 24/7. It has been the most stable machine I ever put together save for one issue that has cropped up this past couple of months.

When I play videos from the Web, it will crash with a blue memory dump screen (XP Pro). That is the only problem I have. Unless I am watching a video the machine will stay running with daily use, week after week.

Last time it happened was two weeks ago when I was watching a video on the Samsung website about HDTV's and when I went back after teh machine restarted, it crashed again on the same video. Today, somebody emailed me a link to a movie trailer, and it did the same thing.

When I restarted the computer just now, it reported in the BIOS that the CPU temp was 159*F and the board temp was 90*. I'm not worried about the board temp, but did the CPU get too hot? Perhaps that is what's causing the crashes when I watch video?

Why isn't the video card doing the processing and saving the CPU? This happens by the way, after about ten minutes or so of watching a vidoe. It never happens right away.

-Paul in San Diego
 
Either of the temperatures are far too hot. Since both are high, it would sound as though you have an air circulation problem. It might be too late for the CPU, but open the case and check that all of the fans operate. How long has it been since you cleaned the case and components? It doesn't sound as though the problem has to do with the video card at all.
 
Thanks for the feedback. The machine isn't dirty inside to speak of and yea, the fans are working. It's in a RAID case with a big fan on the side cover. The CPU fan is Intel OEM but when I built it, I put thermal paste on the CPU surface.

I looked inside when I had the first problem and verified how clean it was in the machine. Only exception is the heat sink under the CPU fan. It has a couple years of dirt on it, but looked to me like it should still allow enough airflow. It was raining that day and I didn't want to drag the computer outside to the compressor and blow it out. Looks like I should have!

Why do you say the MB temp is too high? What's the normal range for a board? Maybe I should introduce another exhaust fan in the case ...
 
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