Do you think my PC is overheated?

[Angrist]

Lately my PC has crashed a lot. Sometimes it looks softwarerelated (FireFox caused a lot of trouble so I'm trying to use Opera more), at other times I feel like it's a hardware problem.

Because my previous PC had an overheating problem, I decided to install SpeedFan to monitor the temperatures. These are the temperatures when my PC is pretty idle (the only thing I was running was iTunes, FireFox and Windows Explorer):

GPU: nVidia GeForce 8600 GT.
163°F

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
4 cores:
142, 136, 127 & 131°F.

SpeedFan does give a flame symbol for all these, which I assume means it's hot. But my automatic fans aren't on yet, so it might not be too hot.

What do you think? Do I have an overheating problem?

I'll go play a game of SC2 now and see what temperatures it gives me then.

[Vampyr]

Maybe your fans are broken and that's why they're not on, and why your computer is overheating.

[Angrist]

No that's not it, my fans sometimes kick in (usually when I've played a game for a while, so I assume it's the GPUs fan).

Ok this is right after playing a game of SC2 (graphical heavy):
GPU: 171°F
CPUs: 153, 145, 138, 140°F.

That's not a very big difference...

[Vampyr]

Those temps are on the warm side, but they aren't ridiculous or anything. You could look up the specification for your CPU and see what the highest temperature it can safely run at is. It's probably quite a bit higher than those temps.

[Angrist]

Hm, then I wonder what the problem can be. I ran anti-virus, nothing came up.

Any tips?
And thanks. :)

[Vampyr]

I had a laptop that consistently ran too hot before (it was running hotter than yours, though, about 70 degrees Celsius).

Nothing I did really helped it, but killing processes that don't need to be running is probably your best bet.

If it's not a laptop and you can actually get into it, you might want to consider buying more or better fans or getting a better heat sink. You may also be able to get some software that lets you manually control the fans or set them to come on at lower temperatures.

You could also try doing a clean install of Windows. Never hurts to do that once in a while and it pretty much eliminates any software related issues.

[Angrist]

Ehm..... my GPU is running 70°C. I thought you guys used Fahrenheit so I converted it all.
My CPUs are between 50 and 60°C.

It's a desktop of... 2 or 3 years old. When was Crysis out? I got my PC a bit later than that.

I'm considering the Windows reinstall, but I hate reinstalling all the other stuff.
I guess I'll defragmentate first. Edit: Hah, it turns out that my PC has been defragmentating itself automatically all these years. I sometimes wondered what that HD noise was.

[Bube]

Nice specs, btw. Never knew what your computer was like :)

How much RAM do you have? I've been away from the hardware scene for quite some time, so I can't really think well enough, but I remember that a PC I had had run into some RAM problems. Everything was working fine, but then started to crash and stuff. Doubled the RAM and everything went back to normal.

And even though it doesn't seem like a GPU problem, don't forget to upgrade the drivers :)

[Angrist]

4GB of ram. 4x1 I noticed today in the bios.

Ah, I will indeed update the GPU drivers, thanks for the tip!

[Bube]

Ahem, yes, I meant update ;) I hate it when I make a mistake :D

And wow, you bought an almost maxed-out PC at the time :) No wonder you were so good at SC2 :p

[KillerGremlin]

For overheating I typically go about it with this order of operations:

1) Look for CPU-raping processes. Although if both the GPU and CPU are toasty it is likely not software related
2) Open case, clean dust
3) Install fan monitor program and manually try to lower temps (which you have already done)
4) Check case fans. What type of tower do you have? How is the airflow?
5) Check heatsinks, GPU/CPU fans, thermal paste

And that is that. I have never had to water cool or anything like that. However at some point I would like to water cool a case just to say I have....

[Vampyr]

Can't believe I forgot to mention cleaning out dust. Grab a can of air and get in there. DON'T SHAKE THE CAN, or turn it upside down.

[manasecret]

Best way to get a huge boost in performance these days is to get one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227394

Solid-state disk drives -- nothing beats 'em for performance.

[Bube]

Aren't those good for load times? How do they affect general performance?

[Vampyr]

Anything that requires going to the hard drive for something will be nearly instant. I have one in my work computer, everything is so snappy.

[Angrist]

I undusted my PC a week ago (when it wouldn't boot up at all), but I don't have a can of air. Will blowing help?

[Seth]

I undusted my PC a week ago (when it wouldn't boot up at all), but I don't have a can of air. Will blowing help?

What do you mean dusted out? If you didn't used compressed air...? I've always used a shop compressor but costco had a deal on air cans so I've been using those lately. 'blowing' on it won't remove dust adequately, if there's any accumulated(unless your part wolf). I've always been told that dusting should never be done using contact...so no feather dusters or cloths.

Since your cpu is running at 60 C, I would check the heatsink goooey first. Should be an easy unclip or a couple of screws. It would be killer if you took a pic of your opened desktop, just to see what your setup looks like space wise. Mid-tower I suppose?

My gaming rig from 2002 haha, was having an overheating problem, and like KG said, if you're software adjusting your fans and have made sure that your fan blades/shroud don't have grimey dust(sometimes dust build up can jam up a fan..but you don't seem like the neglectful fellow),, then check the thermal paste. Heatsinks aren't supposed to fail are they? I mean, it's just dissipating heat, so if there's conductivity between the cpu plate and the heatsink, it should be working as long as your h.s. fan is still whirring.
I'm not even sure if this makes sense, but check your power supply too. Is it top mounted? Sometimes topmounted PSU's can cause heat trap issues. Is your desktop sitting with good airflow around it?

And, is your running temperature actually higher than before or are you guessing that the heat's increased. You might want to consider your room's temperature as well, since sometimes us northerners crank up the heat when it's -bitch C winter outside.

[Angrist]

When I dusted out my PC, I opened it up and removed the thick patches of dust. I guess the problematic dust is still there then. I'll find an air can on Monday.

My desktop PC is basically standing on the ground with my bed next to it. It's not a tight fit or anything, and the area under the bed is empty. The air next to the PC isn't hot or anything.
I'll make a picture tomorrow, when I have some better lighting to work with.

Oh and I don't think I've ever taken a lot of care of my PC hardware... Never knew I had to.

[Seth]

If there was thick grouping of dust, there's a good chance that your little fans have a bunch of mucous dust that doesn't accomodate air slipping past the blades very well.
The vent that needs to be relatively clear is your out fan vent. Your intake doesn't matter so much, but if the hot air has little room to dissipate away from the case, heating will happen. Ideally, a cracked window or cool air source will greatly lower running temperature. There's a balance during the winter months, if your rig is a power hog and generates a lot of gaming heat, then you can essentially use your pc to grab the cold outside air and level it to room temperature without needing to spend money on higher thermostat use.

What kind of psu do you have? If you have extra fan cables(4 pin i think), maybe purchasing a 10 dollar fan would help. Depending on your case, it might require you to make a mount for the fan. On newegg I spent 30$cdn on a coolermaster heatsink(that was massive and wouldn't have fit in anything smaller than my monster case), and it works great. It's got quad copper pipes and a ton of surface area. It is also snap-on upgradable for a second fan on the heatsink which I'm planning to get once I start overclocking and jamming more gpu's in. Pretty cheap alternative.

I'm not really sure about your GPU temp, but from what I've read quickly, it wouldn't hurt to keep your gaming temp below 80 C for that card. An extra gpu fan will probably give you a 5-10 degree drop. Don't think your gpu is much of a problem. My gtx 460 is an MSI hawk so i have dual fans inside a shroud. The cooling system is a lot different than a stock 460's, so I can't add a third fan very easily. I'm a little concerned about SLI'ing another hawk since the pci slots are next to each other and the shroud's extension doesn't leave much room for air to flow.
Depending on how the new cpu+gpu intel and amd offerings are designed(if they're AM3 compatible) i might upgrade to one of those in order to share the gpu load, then use my current 460 to handle physx + another nvidia SLI'd.

[Angrist]

Did anyone know the program "WhoCrashed"?
It tells me that ntkrnlpa.exe has been causing (most of?) the crashes.

So Google doesn't help all that much. The smartest thing I've heard is that perhaps my RAM is defect/corrupt/whatever. I'm going to run MemTest86 to find out.
I must say I've also run some tests with some installed HP program, I think a RAM test was included.


I also bought a can of air. :) I made the guy smile by asking if they sold air. :p

[Angrist]

That's weird... I cleaned the dust out of my PC and I haven't had trouble since.

Is it possible that 'ntkrnlpa.exe' has been crashing because of some hardware dust problem?