CPU Overheating Issue

[BerenTebogo]

So I have a self-built PC (not very good at this whole thing, friend helped me build it about 3-3.5 years ago).

About a week ago I moved cross country and one of the few things I took with me in the car instead of having shipped was my desktop + monitor. I was very careful with the tower and it is a good case, I made sure it was well wrapped in blankets + wasn't sliding around to the best of my ability.

However now that I'm in my new apartment (first floor, central air, ceiling fans - much cooler environment for it overall than the last year or so) I'm having intermittent but fairly catastrophic failures from my PC.

The first day I set it up I couldn't keep it turned on for more than about 2-3 minutes before it restarted and booted up giving me the "American Megatrends" screen with "CPU Over Temperature Error!" "Press F1 to Resume" screen. Now before this I had never seen it, ever.

I jostled it a bit and removed both side panels to give it more ventilation. This allowed me to do my raiding for the night. About 2 days later without turning it on I moved it into the other room, carefully, and again couldn't get it to stay on and kept getting the CPU overheat problem. A bit of jostling around and fucking with it and I managed to do frontlines all day. Now I just went to turn it on again am getting the Overheat problem.

Anyone able to tell me what is up? My computers are pretty much my life as I do computational physics and spend about 90% of my life coding. I need to fix this ASAP.

[Melena]

Assuming the CPU fan is seated and the power plug for it hasn't come loose and the blades are spinning fine?

[BerenTebogo]

Yes, the CPU fan is on and working. Uploading some pictures now.

Yes, I know it's dusty, at this very moment though there is very little I can do about it. Need some canned air. Last apartment was 100% carpeted.

[Madeline]

Stock intel fan? I'll assume you used the stock thermal paste as well.

Might be time to remove it and see if the paste is still there, could've completely melted away or not have been applied properly. In either case, it's time to reapply, and probably invest in a new heatsink while you're at it, as those aren't very good, especially if that's an Ivy Bridge you're running.

[BerenTebogo]

Is that something that would be an overnight-ish change? I'm just concerned that it was working perfectly (I've never seen any hint of this before I moved).

I've started looking into it, doesn't seem like a bad idea to change it out anyway so I'll do that.

[Mabubeezareel]

It's very possible that during the move, even the smallest of bumps could have caused the heatsink to unseat itself JUST enough to no longer be making proper contact with the CPU. If that is indeed the case, then you'd do best to unseat the heatsink, re-apply thermal paste, then re-seat the heatsink. While you're at it, definitely take some canned air to the fan and get rid of all of that dust. 15-20 minute job once you've got the proper materials.

[BerenTebogo]

Thermal paste available any stores or just an order online thing?

[Shenrien]

You usually want to reapply a new coat of the paste every 6-12 months, you can neglect it longer and it won't cause too much harm but it's often best if you don't. Given how dusty everything appears or it could just be the light idk I'd say it's been a while since anything, or if anything has ever been done to take care of the hardware itself.

Look up a vid on how to remove the heatsink carefully, avoid any; twisting, turning, bending or anything of the sort as you could damage the pins on the board or cpu. Depending on how it's manufactured... it being Intel usually safe to assume the board has the pins, and take a paper cloth and some 91% isopropyl alcohol and remove the gunk on the cpu and the heatsink itself until it's as clean as you can get it, let it air dry or wipe down with a dry paper cloth. You could always opt for a anti-static cloth fabric rag thing if you feel that would be better, my experience hasn't turned up with any dead cpu yet with using paper cloth and leaves little to nothing on the cpu/heatsink itself that would cause any harm.

Apply a new little dab of the thermal paste, roughly about the size of a pea will do, you don't want it to be oozing out around the edges and I'd avoid scraping it across the cpu itself because layering won't be as even as just pressure from remounting the heatsink. I'd also take the time to grab a can or two of compressed air and clean out the system of any dust, cobweb, w/e.

If you feel the heatsink itself may not just be good enough I'd suggest one of two things.

This beautiful beast I use.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-032-_-Product

or..

This thing that I have in my media streaming PC

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-099-_-Product

o/ gl

You can find the paste in any tech like store, office max, radioshack(if they're still in business) hell Target may even carry it I wouldn't be shocked.

[SubzeroDiabolos]

If you don't feel safe doing it yourself, get a technician from a store to do it for you. Too much or not enough thermal paste can render it useless and, if in insufficient quantity, overheat your CPU to the point of permanently damaging it.

That said, if you pay close attention and educate yourself with youtube videos, its a much cheaper route.

Link.. Also, since you're going to be removing the old paste, I suggest you clean it with some alcohool.


EDIT: If you are not overclocking your CPU, and your current heatsink is still in shape, I wouldn't invest in one. It's most likely your paste alone being the culprit. Intel usually ship heatsink that'll do nicely for the CPU as long as no OC is applied. Besides, i'm not sure a 30$ one would fare any better than the stock one (again assuming its in working order)

[chiyio]

Wouldn't hurt to reseat your memory and any cards as well, stuff could have jostled lose a little in the move.

[BerenTebogo]

Okay thanks, I'll try it out tomorrow.

[Kaisha]

and probably invest in a new heatsink while you're at it, as those aren't very good

They got low life expectancy or something? I'm running the same stock but on a Haswell. Only ever seen my CPU get as hot as 60C during gaming, in a humid room, with no A/C.

[Krandor]

Not every thermal compound needs to be reapplied on a regular basis. A fair number of the ceramic ones will likely never need to be reapplied until you replace the hardware entirely. I believe I used Arctic MX4 for my CPU cooler (Corsair H60), and haven't touched it since I built the thing around 18 months ago.

Also if you're not overclocking a stock cooler is completely fine. But I wouldn't dream of running my CPU on a stock cooler, since for quite awhile I was running it at 4.4Ghz (up from 3.4GHz stock). It sits at 4.3Ghz nowadays because XIV for some reason hated it running that high and I kicked it down a notch. Despite no longer playing I never felt like switching it back.

[Niya]

The biggest problem with stock coolers is usually that they can keep the CPU at non-critical temps BUT get loud as a jet engine on heavy load. If your tower hasn't been that loud so far you can keep it, but it might still be worth a few bucks to get a non-stock cooler.

And as the others already said, undust everything, carefully remove the heatsink, clean it and the CPU heat spreader with alcohol and paper towels. Apply a pea-sized blob of thermal paste to the center of the CPU and slowly push the heatsink back in place, try not to push one side down too much so the paste can spread evenly.

Oh, right. If you want to remove the CPU from its socket for cleaning, be extra careful with all those tiny springs in the socket.

[Madeline]

They got low life expectancy or something? I'm running the same stock but on a Haswell. Only ever seen my CPU get as hot as 60C during gaming, in a humid room, with no A/C.

I simply don't trust them on Ivy Bridge chips, as they run a little hotter than the other chips do. It's why I mentioned Ivy Bridge in my post. That said, I don't think using stock fans for anything is a very good idea these days. Cooler the better, but hey. Some cases it's just fine, like yours for example--though I think between Ivy and Haswell the temp issues were worked out completely.

All that said, I do overclock. So that's all said from someone who wouldn't leave well enough alone.

Echoing that a good thermal paste won't need to be reapplied--in this case, I'd suggest grabbing something like the Arctic MX4 (around 10 USD) mentioned here and forget about it. I built mine around a year and a half ago and it's still the same as when I first applied it.

[Isiolia]

With the stock coolers like that, each corner rotates to lock it down. I'd just start by checking to see if they all seem like they all still are, or if one came loose during the move.

Stock fan can be fine, but personally, if your case has a cutout behind the CPU socket I'd consider getting a third party cooler (could wind up being a pain to install otherwise).

[Slott]

I don't think that's ivy bridge - looks like first gen I7 since there are 3 sets of ram, and wasn't only the first set of I7s triple channel? Could be wrong - but anyway...clean dust and make sure you get a heatsink that'll fit that guy

[Isiolia]

I don't think that's ivy bridge - looks like first gen I7 since there are 3 sets of ram, and wasn't only the first set of I7s triple channel? Could be wrong - but anyway...clean dust and make sure you get a heatsink that'll fit that guy

Mobo looks to be an ASUS P6T series, so yeah, it's a socket 1366 board, probably an i7 920 or 950.

[chiyio]

Sath needs to post another picture after he's cleaned it out, that dust is killing me.

[BerenTebogo]

I made my brand new apartment the dustiest place in the universe and it's only like 50% better. My allergies are thanking me.

Anyway I removed heatsink, cleaned off old paste and reapplied new paste. I then noticed that my CPU fan pins that lock into the board aren't really working well, if barely at all. I plugged it in, no change, still overheated. I took it back off and realized me fiddling with the fan had fucked up the paste spread so I recleaned it and repasted it, about to plug it back in now, still really only supported by 1 pin.

So I'm going to be looking to replace the heatsink / CPU fan for this model MB. Any suggestion? May upgrade CPU as well since it's way paste its prime.

Edit: Running okay now, but it's doing startup repair. One of the times the power cut out for safety while windows was starting up must've screwed something up. I don't make regular restore points so this could be extra fun.

Edit 2: Nope, nevermind. Still overheating.