OT: Computer Question (I'm Having Problems)

[Ash]

I figured that maybe one of you might be able to answer this question.

Here are my p.c. stats:
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
1.35 GHZ  
1.00 GB RAM

I've never overclocked my CPU and have always ran it at 1.8 GHZ...it's been running at that speed for over a year now.
The other night I turned on my p.c and it immediately shut itself off.
I turned it back on and it immediately went to the SETUP screen.
There was a message that read something like this:
"On the last reboot, your CPU hung because of incorrect CPU frequency"
I tried leaving it at 1.8 GHZ ...saved the changes and tried to reboot only to have it happen again.
I eventually had to turn it down to 1.35 GHZ (as seen in the specs above)
At this speed, it runs fine.

I asked a couple of friends what the problem might be and they both stated that it's probably an overheating issue.
They told me to open it up, remove the fan and clean both it and the heatsink off thoroughly.
Not only did I do that, I took a can of canned air (Duster) and blew out all of the gunk.
When I finished, it was all nice and sparkly clean.
(yes, there was a bit of dust & dirt before I cleaned it but it wasn't too bad)

I then reassembled my p.c., entered SETUP and switched it back to 1.8 GHZ and then started it up.
It immediately hung again and went back to the SETUP screen.
I was again forced to turn it back down to 1.35 GHZ.

I don't get what else could be wrong.

I downloaded this program which "monitors temperature of CPU, motherboard, hard disks, voltages, and fan speeds."

Here are the results:
CPU: 0*C / 32* F
SYS: 41*C / 106*F
AUX: 33*C / 92*F
HDO: 33*C / 92*F

The CPU fan runs between 4000 and 5274 RPM

Any ideas as to what's going on here?
Could it be that my CPU itself is going bad?

I'd appreciate any help you guys can offer.
Thanks!

[ulthar]

Ash,

That CPU temp your program is reporting is nonsense.  There is no way your air cooled CPU is 32 F.  Think about that.

In the set-up screen, is there a menu option for 'system health' or some such?  There should be a way to monitor the temp from the set-up screen somewhere, and maybe even set an alarm or shutdown temp.  If that third party software is reading your hardware properly, there is something wrong with the temp sensor.

Do you know what broad/model main board you have?

Have you recently changed or added any RAM?  Is your GB of RAM in smaller sticks so you could remove it and reboot with only one stick at a time installed?  Sometimes, systems do very screwy things when RAM is bad.

[Neville]

I also have an AMD and I agree it can be a heating issue. These suckers may be better than Intel CPUs, but they overheat very easily. I recently replaced the CPU fan for a liquid cooling system. Ulthar is also right in noticing that CPU temp. value can't be right. My AMD (am Athlon64 3400) is always between 54-68 celsius degrees, depending on the program running.

My advice would be not to trust your old CPU fan. Even if you cleaned it, it is very probable it is damaged, and in that case it's not running as fast as it should. This would explain why you keep getting that message, even after cleaning the fan. Replace it with a new one, and then run some decent monitoring program, such as Everest, to see how much your CPU is heating. If it gets behind 70 celsius degrees easily, consider buying a liquid cooling system.