Possible CPU Overheating

Hey, so I have a couple questions, I have tried looking around on google but didn't find much useful, so I figured i'd just ask my fellow GC members.

About a 2 weeks ago(approx.) my computer started shutting off when I would start playing games, I first suspected it was due to my GPU overheating(as i had just upgraded that several weeks before then. After I had played with the fan settings and stuff i was able to drop the temperature to no where near what would cause it to overheat, however this didn't solve the problem, next I thought it might be the CPU overheating, wasn't really able to determine if this was in fact the problem, until last weekend my computer shut off and wouldn't power back on. I then found out my PSU had died and I needed a new one. So i purchased a new one, it got here last wednesday and i installed it that night powered on and had no issues. I played a couple video games (for multiple hours at a time), mainly Minecraft and Counter-Strike: Source. However a couple hours ago I decided to play some Bad Company 2. A couple hours into playing my computer shut off on me again(for the first time since the new PSU was installed) So after this happened, i began to suspect the CPU was overheating again. After letting it sit for a while, i booted up and went directly into the BIOS. I checked the CPU temp and my bios was reading it at somewhere in the mid to high 30's (in degrees C). However this temperature was rapidly climbing and eventually got to the mid to hight 50's! This is when i started becoming concerned(as the auto shut off temp for my processor is at 62*C) So i powered my computer off and started looking around on my laptop for ways I could verify that this was in fact too hot as well as attempting to find some software that would help me find out what my CPU temp was while inside the windows OS(as i read somewhere that the BIOS will put a strain on on your CPU to read the max temps). Some of the software i found were: CoreTemp - This was supposed to simply tell me what temp my cpu was, and at first it read 0*C(?), So i rebooted and launched it again. After that it started out reading 27*C, and so i thought that wasn't too bad, however it didn't stay there, it just kept dropping until eventually it reached 0*C. So I figured this wasn't an accurate read. After looking around a little bit more online I found suggestions for this program Called OCCT. Which basically runs a stress test to see if your computer is stable, i ran it for the CPU option at the very top(i think it was just called CPU - OCCT). The website suggested the 30 minute test for a pretty reliable read through(however did suggest that some people liked to do 2 hours or even 24 hour tests.). And(im guessing) at the end of the test is when it would give me the results about the CPU temps as well as any issues, however about 5-10 minutes in my computer shut itself off.

Does this confirm my suspicions of the CPU overheating?
Are there any other programs people may suggest to read my CPU temp?
I also have a formatted bootable flash drive with Hiren's Boot CD v13.0, however I was unable to navigate through that and comfortably select any of the options other than running the Memtest(which checked out fine after i believe 3 passes) And if anyone can help me through running the diagnostics on that/would suggest or not suggest it. I would appreciate any help. thanks.

Computer Specs(nothing is overclocked):
CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE @ 3.2ghz
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 6870
PSU: OCZ Modxstream-PRO 700w
Case: Antec Nine Hundreed Black Steel ATX Midtower
Mobo: Biostar TA890FX
HDD: WD Caviar Green 1TB


If theres any relevant information I left out I'd be glad to add it, just ask.
Thanks again

 

Unfortunately i have been completely cut off from the bay as i am living on campus and they have strict no P2P software rule and i get a warning simply from opening on the software on my computer while im on the network. And no I don't get the BSOD, and it doesn't even slow down before hand it just suddenly powers down, and then when i reboot(i have to do so by manually hitting the power button, its not a restart), is that windows tells me that it didn't shut down properly. As for the software, is there a free version of everest? or possibly a .zip or .rar download somewhere(like megaupload or one of those sites).

As for the thermal paste/heat sink, they are both the stock ones that came with my processor, and since this was my first tower that I built I had a friend who has done this a couple times before help me and hes the one who actually applied it. And as far as I could tell the heat sink fan is running fine, it was reading at about 3300-3400 rpms in the BIOS(which i compared to my brothers on his Phenom II x4 965 BE @ 3.4ghz which was at 3500 rpms and was in the mid to high 40's in Celcius in the BIOS-and he has had no issues when running games since we built his tower a couple months ago).

The only other thing i can think of is that when my PSU failed last week and my computer wouldn't boot back up, i was still concerned it was the CPU overheating i took the heat sink off to look at it and make sure that it didn't fry the CPU and it looked fine, could taking the heat sink off have messed up the thermal paste that was on there?(i was pretty careful when taking stuff off/putting it back on)

Thanks again for the help.

Just found this link, is this the same version or edition as the one you had in mind? it says ultimate edition, but you never know http://download.cnet.com/Everest-Ultimate-Edition/3000-2086_4-10499291.html ----> lol just noticed it was a 30 day trial for it, but that should work right?

 

Hmmm, alright ill check out the HWMonitor as well as the CPU-Z, and the 62*C auto shut down temp is the temp that i got from the AMD site, and its labeled as Max Temps. ( AMD Processors for Desktops: AMD Phenom )

If i do end up modifying the Auto Shut down temp where would i do that? in the BIOS?

As for the thermal compound/grease my whole tower(aside from the cd/dvd drive) are less than a year old, i bought all the parts last summer. And from what i understood that is supposed to last for several years(even though many people suggest to change it on a yearly basis)

I just opened up the Hardware Health Configuration in my BIOS the Shutdown Temperature is marked as disabled?

Also just ran HWMonitor and these are the temp readings:
THRM 48*C(current) 52*C(max)
CPU 48*C(current) 54*C(max)
Mainboard 63*C(current) 64*C(max)
TMPIN2 21*C(current) 21*C(max)

and then under AMD Phenom II X4 955
each of the cores is listed 0*C(32*F) for all 4 of em

 

Hmm, would changing the profile setting make that much of a difference, cause i've just left it at high performance(kind of scratch that question, cause i did just see a HUGE drop in temp from just changing that setting... lol its now reading at 36*C and possibly still dropping) . And also i've felt the heatsink a couple times before and it had felt pretty hot (not so hot that i couldn't touch it though) and also the only other high temp i see is the mainboard, which is still around 62*C is that anything i need to worry about? and what is that exactly? lol

Thanks again

PS
The power for my processor is at 19.5W and the max is at 113.4W

And at this point the CPU temp is down to 29*C lol... thats pretty ridiculous...

 

Haha yeah, so I restarted my computer, just to see if everything would remain normal after a reboot, I booted into the BIOS first and the temp starts in the high 30's then it would still go up into the 50's(i went ahead and just booted up once it got to like 51*C). So im guessing the BIOS does in fact stress the CPU to get more of a max temp reading? and will those be the temps i will likely see whlie gaming?

Also now that im booted up it seems that the CPU temp is stabilizing around 28*C-29*C. However since I am still yet to play any games I don't know if the random shut down problem is actually resolved, I'll try and figure that out by some point tomorrow for sure, and repost the results then. (I will also probably try running the OCCT 3.1 CPU Stress test).

Anyways thanks for suggesting that, I honestly never would have thought to adjust the power settings... lol I'm still semi shocked at both how fast it dropped the temp as well as how much it dropped the idle temp.(i honestly think it dropped around 6*C instantly when i changed the poewr setting).

And as for the Northbridge and southbridge things, where would i find the heatsinks etc for those? And is that a different possible alternative for the auto shutdown thing? (it seems its very slowly dropping and is at 56*C atm) What is a common overheating temperature setting for the auto shutdown on those?

Thanks for the help... I love GC!

 

Haha, yeah man for sure, i actually didn't even realize there was +rep on this site(i've seen people mention it but it seemed jokingly and not too serious). but i see a button for liking your post so ill go ahead and click that and see what happens. Also will the north/south bridge likely heat up much during games or are those generally going to stay around the same temp?

 

Ahh found it, yeah i went ahead and gave you some rep for the post about the power profiles... cause seriously thats pretty ridiculous about the High Performance thing, i looked around in the advanced settings for it and sure enough, the minimum performance setting for the CPU was set to 100% for the High Performance one, vs the 5% setting on the balanced(i checked on my laptop, but i imagine they are the same as on my desktop). Anyways ill post back here tomorrow if that fixed the problem.

Thanks again for the help
Goodnight!

 

Hey, so i just ran the OCCT v3.1 CPU - OCCT test. And I was watching the results on HWMonitor while it was going to watch my temps during the test.
The first minute or two of the test its just idle, and recording the temps. then after another maybe 3 or 4 minutes of the test, I watched the CPU temp climb all the way to 87*C before i stopped the test to let it cool back down.

The only thing im unsure of is i get a message saying "OCCT detected that CPU-Z or HWMonitor is running. As OCCT uses the CPU-Z and HWMonitor SDK, this can lead to weird results in System Information or Monitoring Information. Do you wish to continue?" then i can either click "OK" or "Annuler". I went ahead and just closed both programs before I ran the test, and then I ran OCCT first, then opened up HWMonitor, I didn't get an error or warning message of any kind doing it this way, but I doubt that would change much. Could these be just innacurate results? And if not, does this likely imply that I do infact need to reapply some thermal grease?

And also, I noticed that the Mainboards temp reached around 66*C during the Stress test, is that likely just from residual heat from the CPU getting to such high temps?

Also just found out that im still using the stock thermal grease that came pre-applied on my heatsink.

 

Yeah, I actually found out that i was using the stock thermal grease by asking the friend who originally helped me build the computer, and while talking to him it came up that i did in fact do that last weekend(take the heatsink off that is) when my PSU died and i was worried the CPU may have been fried(which now looking back on it was fairly silly lol) but yeah I figured out that i basically just need to buy some new thermal grease and re apply that. I'm looking to either get Arctic Silver 5 or the Antec Formula 5(i think thats what it was called, ima check out what they have at some of the local computer stores around campus before i go to order it online). I'm just glad im finally getting to the bottom of this, lol i wanna get back to gaming! haha.

So having either air pockets or some grime or something like that can really up the heat on the CPU while its under load? (it still idles around 27-28*C)

 

Hmmmm, if i end up buying it online, ill probably get that, the main issue i have right now is that money is a little tight atm, mainly cause of the PSU i had to buy last week. so i don't wanna spend to much, but that actually doesn't look much more expensive than just the grease i was looking at. But i am still probably going to check out the local stores first and see what i can find there. i also plan on checking out a couple guides or videos and stuff online to make sure i do it right. Would you say that using the remover and purifier are a lot better than just cleaning it myself?(i'm not even sure what/if anything i'd have to do that atm)