Dodgy Computers

[Evil Dave]

Cooling or power supply.

I\'d change out both, simple enough to do and far cheaper than a new system.

As Mike said, clean it out. it could be an airflow problem which could simply be fixed by modding your case with a blowhole at the top and at the side. (Merely requires a propersized hole saw, a dremel and the fans.)

Some of the new heatpipe heatsinks are really nice and work like a charm.

But if you really want to geek out: Water Cooling.

I rarely go under 500W on a power supply just because the CPU and the Vid card take a lot of power while gaming.

 

[Modderrhu]

Water cooling? Pah! Liquid freon cooling, with blue LEDs running along each pipe. Red LEDs lighting up the cables and green light enhancing the motherboard viewing experience. All inside a see-through perspex chassis of course...

Gadzooks, I think I\'ve just made myself ill... :|~

 

[Equus]

I think DragonPaint and Evil Dave pretty much covered my first thoughts about stuff like that, since it sounds like it only happens when your comp is working under load circumstances.

I think a lot of people (myself included) don\'t think enough about how dust can really hamper or destroy the fans on your heatsinks, case, and power supply. Compressed air, a dust mask, and blowing it out while outdoors may help. It\'s a good thing to do anyway.

Power supply is an easy fix too. I\'d check to make sure you have enough juice out of it, especially if you have a \"somewhat\" newer video card that you have to connect you power supply to. A lot of these use the same voltage rail as your motherboard, and older power supplies may have the overall wattage to deal, but not enough juice into that particular rail.

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by Modderrhu
Water cooling? Pah! Liquid freon cooling, with blue LEDs running along each pipe. Red LEDs lighting up the cables and green light enhancing the motherboard viewing experience. All inside a see-through perspex chassis of course...

Gadzooks, I think I\'ve just made myself ill... :|~

You\'ll laugh, but the only reason I haven\'t designed a liquid Nitrogen cooling system is the humidity in Louisiana.
It would actually cause condensation in my case.

But I have designed a water cooling system that has not been done before and am tinkering with the idea of trying it out one of these days.

 

[Modderrhu]

I\'ll laugh if, and only if, you make it look like a 70\'s disco was exploding inside of it. Your water-cooling comment made me think of those gaming computers that give you a headache when you stare at them for too long.

I have one of those little coolers with two ceramic plates that turn quite cold when the power runs. No idea what it is or how it works, but letting it run in free air will cause it to ice up within a few seconds, and that\'s exactly the reason I don\'t use it.

 

[airhead]

do a google search for Sandra. It is software that monitors all the parameters that your computer reports:

cpu temp
ram temp
power supply temp
video card temp

fan speeds

etc.

I suspect it is your video card & cpu overheating the system, but it could be any number of other things as mentioned.

 

[DragonPaint]

Originally posted by Evil Dave

I rarely go under 500W on a power supply just because the CPU and the Vid card take a lot of power while gaming.

The key is to buy QUALITY power supply
I have just assembled a nice computer with AMD Athlon 64 3500+, ATI X1900GT, 350GB hard disk SATAII, Asus MB, DVD and DVDRW using an Arctic Cooling Silentium T3 Case with a very good 350W continuous power supply PFC Active:
http://www.arcticcooling.com/pc_case2.php?idx=76

It runs like silk

Another good power supply id the Vantec ION 350W, never had a problem even with the new graphic cards:
http://www.vantecusa.com/product-powersupply.html#

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by DragonPaint

Originally posted by Evil Dave

I rarely go under 500W on a power supply just because the CPU and the Vid card take a lot of power while gaming.

The key is to buy QUALITY power supply
I have just assembled a nice computer with AMD Athlon 64 3500+, ATI X1900GT, 350GB hard disk SATAII, Asus MB, DVD and DVDRW using an Arctic Cooling Silentium T3 Case with a very good 350W continuous power supply PFC Active:
http://www.arcticcooling.com/pc_case2.php?idx=76

It runs like silk

Another good power supply id the Vantec ION 350W, never had a problem even with the new graphic cards:
http://www.vantecusa.com/product-powersupply.html#

Take a look at this beauty.
Hiper Type R Modular Power Supply

The engineering is beautiful, the circular screw on connectors puts this head and shoulders above the regular modular power supplies.
That coupled with the fact you only put in which cables you need, cutting restrictive air flow.
I\'ve got two of these babies for some comps I built for work. They are great.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Duende
It\'s only happened with my work computer. The tech guy said it was because of the two different virus programs that were conflicting with each other. My (new) computer, which is a Dell, came with Norton, but our network main computer has McAfee installed on it. I don\'t know if it was a load of BS or not, but it stopped happening after he completely uninstalled Norton from it. He said it\'s a common thing that different virus programs \"don\'t get along\" and can cause crashes and lock-ups like I was having.

Any computer-savvy people out there that can shed any light on this theory?

Sadly it\'s not BS.
And the stupidest thing about it is that both Norton and MacAfee are now the same company.
We use MacAfee at work and have very little problem about conflicts.
However the other main drag as far as Anti-virus programs go is Sophos. Brilliant system for killing and clearing Viruses, But put it alongside another program (say Word) and Manure can hit the Wind moving machine.

Oh and when I said about keeping you CPU below ambient temperature I didn\'t make myself very clear. (Ok I was in Techie thought mode) On most (but not all machines) you should be able to run something like SANDRA (as recommended by Airhead) and determine the Current CPU temperature.
For most CPU\'s this should not be more than 5 degrees above the temperature of the motherboard. If this is happening then you need to consult with someone who can enter and adjust the BIOS settings of the PC to ensure that the CPU fan kicks in earlier to cool it down.

But if as you say you are running this for oline gaming there is a high chance that the PC you are using is not designed for long term heavy processor utilisation and you might be reaching either the critical error level for the CPU and/or receiving CRC errors from your Game host.

Any how you look at this, if it is constantly happening , then in pure unadulterated technical terms \"You\'re Screwed!\".

(Time to break open the piggy bank methinks!)

 

[mistamick]

Originally posted by supervike
If its getting too hot, just put and ice cube right on the CPU (you\'ll have to open the case)

That will keep in nice and cool.

:drunk:

Right... ???
Thanks supervike, helpful advice.