PC Crashing after 30 min, anyway to figure out why?

[Atomsku]

Hello everyone,

My PCs motherboard died right in the middle of an important project I needed to complete, so in a haste to get back up and running I bought a pre-built from Best Buy that I thought could get the job done...apparently I was wrong.

The PC crashes about every 30 - 60 min. It doesn't freeze, it just suddenly restarts and then either:

1. Restarts 2 times before finally making it to windows screen
or 2. Doesn't turn back on at all, even if you press power button.

I promptly returned to best buy, and they gave me a new one, and it's still doing it.

The PC is this model:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+E...&skuId=5555539

I made some modifications to it however. I threw in an Nivida 260GTS gpu, and an Asus 650W power supply to run it (it was the PSU from my previous computer, I didn't buy it specifically for this), also added 8GB DDR3 (2 sticks of 4 GB, if that matters), and had an additional fan installed to attempt to get some more airflow into the tiny case.

I'd like to just return the whole thing and build one myself, but my deadlines on this project are sorta preventing me, so I'd really like to get this one working properly for now until I have the means to build something better. Anyone have any suggestions to what might cause this behavior? I thought it was overheating, as the case does feel very very warm, but I was monitoring temperatures and they all seemed to be around 114 degrees F. Dunno if that's high or not for a computer.

If you need any additional information just let me know, this is my first time posting on a tech forum and I'm certainly not as knowledgeable as all of you, so I'll be happy to assist however I can!

 

[Bubbaleone]

First, note the BIOS version that is currently installed on your machine and if it's not version 4002, go to the Asus Essentio CM6730 webpage. Click on the "Download" tab, enter "Windows 7 64bit" in the small window labled "OS:" and you'll see all the download categories available for your Essentio.

You'll need the CM6730 User's Manual if you don't already have one, the latest BIOS version (the last two BIOS updates have both dealt with improving system stability), and the DOS Based BIOS update tool found under the "BIOS-Utilities" category. Update the BIOS and test to see if the restart problem resolves or not.


.

 

[BadThad]

BIOS is a good suggestion...but did it do this with the stock power supply?

 

[Atomsku]

Thanks for the replies! The Bios suggestion does sound good.

I don't know if it did this with the stock power supply, I had them replace it immediately, as I needed a sufficient graphics card and the 300w it came with wouldn't handle that.

I think I might have figured it out though. As I said in my original post, I didn't think it was overheating, but it seems it might be after all. I took the side of the case off and have a very strong fan blowing directly into the tower (probably not the best idea, but this is just for testing) and the PC hasn't crashed for 2 days since doing this.

Maybe just a coincidence, but it seems keeping it cool is working, which leads me to think it's just an issue of my 260gts heating it too much. Any thoughts?

Thanks again everyone!