I need some help what with overheating

[DeathsHand]

awhile ago I bought a new computer, 3Ghz P4, 512MB ram ATI Radeon 9200SE... Asus motherboard with a fan that spins faster as it heats up... Well it would always run really friggin fast, so I installed another case fan and it helped a lot and ran fine...

Now I upgraded to an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro... aaaaand well, The Sims 2 lasts about 10 minutes before the computer shuts off... Louder and louder and louder then makes a bit of a buzzing noise then shuts off...

I really don't wanna mess with one of them water cooling systems, but I need some advice on what could work to help stuff, etc etc, I really don't know jack shiat about computers (and all those tech sites scare me... this being my first new computer since my crappy old 300Mhz P2)...

Yup...

[GameMaster]

How's the Sims 2? Should I buy it? And aside from the fan problem, does Sims 2 run well on your computer? Or does it just gulp loads and loads of power and memory?

[Happydude]

Originally Posted by GameMaster

How's the Sims 2? Should I buy it? And aside from the fan problem, does Sims 2 run well on your computer? Or does it just gulp loads and loads of power and memory?

anyway, how much Watt is your PSU running?...your PC might be consuming more power then it is acually getting...so check into that...i would recommend

www.tigerdirect.com or .ca or whatever for the power supply you need...

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by happydude666

anyway, how much Watt is your PSU running?...your PC might be consuming more power then it is acually getting...so check into that...i would recommend

www.tigerdirect.com or .ca or whatever for the power supply you need...

uhhh..... *scratches head* I dunno... My brother's friend builds computers (part of his family's business) and I got it from him.. He normally helps us out with most problems, but they don't sell cooling items (aside from a crummy looking water one and normal case fans) at their store....... I'll ask him about the watt deal though o.O

And I havn't really gotten a chance to play The Sims 2... It ran like ass with my 9200SE (on lowest detail settings), but then ran near-perfect with my 9800Pro (on highest details)... Until the computer shut off... But it seems swell...

[GameMaster]

Where do I look on the PC to see what kind of graphics card I have?

[quiet mike]

Go into device manager by right clicking My Computer/Proprieties and select the Hardware tab.

But if you want more detail, create a new document with the extension .nfo Now double click it, ignore the warning of incorect info or something, and look under components/display.

[Null]

Whats your power supply? (will be written on the side of it) how many watts?

[Jason1]

I was having a problem awhile back where games would just completly lock up at random times, making me do a hard boot. I thought for the longest time that it was a heating problem, for sure. I tried numerous things, even bought some arctic silver 5 to use on the fan/CPU, one day I would think I had the problem fixed, the next, BAM, it would happen again. I finally found some post at some forum of someone who had almost the exact same setup as me, and was having the same problems. Anyways, after months of messing with voltages, heating stuff, AGP things, ect, I FINALLY figured out the problem. Apparently even though my MOBO (MSI 648MAX-L) was suppoused to support a certain fast speed of RAM(cant remember the speed exactly), apparently it cant actually do it without problems. So all I had to do was underclock my RAM ever so slightly in BIOS and I havent had one lockup since.

So moral of the story I guess would be...make sure it is indeed a heating problem before you start to mess too much, because it might not be...

[Yoda9864]

I will admit that I don't have much experience with Pentium chips. But I'm pretty sure that you should have no problem with heat. Are you familiar with your BIOS? Maybe you have some kind of dynamic overclocking on that's making your fan go nuts and eventually reboots the computer because it can't keep up with the OC.

I'm afraid I don't have much experience with overheating since my computer runs at a cool 40C. Of course, I went a little overboard on my cooling setup. I have a ZALMAN CNPS7000A-AlCu heatsink/fan w/ Arctic Siver 5, 6 80mm quiet case fans, and 2 80mm PSU fans.

Still, I don't think you should have a problem with overheating.

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

i'm thinking the one thats really loud is defective, or just broken, is that the fan for the processor? if so just replace it and you should be fine.

[Ace195]

Umm invest in a bigger heatsink and fan, More fans the better.. but if your friend is willing to do it water is the way to go.. Honeslty that or liquid nitrogen.. wh00 boy do I want one of those

[GameMaster]

Dear DeathsHand,

Anymore impressions on the Sims 2?

Sincerely,
GM