Screen Goes Blank - Heating problem?

[Jolie]

I built one computer for a cousin and she used it for about a year without any problems. Recently, however, while she is using the computer, the screen will just go black but the computer appears to still be running. The monitor light goes from green to orange. Moving the mouse or hitting keyboard keys does nothing. I can't restart the computer unless I go to power supply and hit the 0 switch to turn it off and then switch it back to 1 to turn on the computer.

I tried testing the parts of the computer to try to pinpoint which hardware is giving a problem by swapping out parts and running them on a working computer. The graphics card, processor, hard drives, power supply, and memory all works when I swap each of them independently into the working computer. The monitor works fine when plugged into the working computer. One thing I noticed was that the processor ran very hot since it is an Intel Prescott and it dried up the Arctic silver that I put onto the processor when I built the computer. I am using the stock fan that came with the cpu so it may be a heating problem, but I'm not sure. What do you guys think?

I listed the computer specs below. Keep in mind that this was a very low budget computer.

Motherboard: ASUS P4S800-MX Socket 478 SiS 661FX Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Video Card: PNY PCFX5700APB Geforce FX5700 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.4A Prescott 2.4GHz Socket 478
Memory: CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400
Power Supply: POWMAX 450W Power Supply

Any help would be very appreciated!

 

[btcomm1]

Well it could be a heating problem but it sounds like the motherboard. If you are sure the psu, memory, video card and CPU are all working fine it's the mobo.

You could see if the motherboard comes with a utility that will keep track of the temperature and log it. I know my asus board does. Then when you reboot you can see the last temperature reading and see if it's too high.

I'm assuming that you removed the arctic silver that was on there and put on a new application of it?

 

[Jolie]

Yeah I put a new application of arctic silver on it.

I don't think the motherboard came with a temperature utility. Where could I find that?

 

[SilthDraeth]

Originally posted by: Jolie
Yeah I put a new application of arctic silver on it.

I don't think the motherboard came with a temperature utility. Where could I find that?

If it came with a utility it would be included on a CD that came with the motherboard.

 

[Jolie]

There was no temperature utility that came with the motherboard. The motherboard seems to work okay. I'm not sure exactly what the problem is. Do you have any other ideas?

 

[montag451]

Don't suppose you have a spare vid card you could try out?

I know you said that one works in another system, but it would be good to know if another one works in your cousin's

 

[Jolie]

A different video card works in the system. It's still functioning the same though. After a while, the screen will just go blank.

The arctic silver keeps melting so I think it's the processor getting too hot. Any solutions for that? Should I get better cpu fan?