overheating possibly leading to short circuit?

My computer (which I have been building over the last year) has had no
issues with any hardware problems until two nights ago...

I have a P4 3.E processor (appr. 3.01 to .02 GHz) w/ HT. Abit IC7-G
motherboard. ATI AGP Radeon 9550XL 256mb video card. 600w Ultra power
supply.

I was playing AGE III with one of my flat mates. About an hour and
half into the game my computer's alarm started going off. After waking
everyone in the room I turned off the game and the computer stopped
beeping. I immediately thought that it was overheating because I can't
think of another reason why it would beep like that. I was surprised
thought because I have a total of 9 fans in my computer. Also, my
thermal reader said that my CPU was only about 122 deg. F. The thermal
reader at that time was only loosely connected to the heat sink
(actually barely hanging on with the thermal tape). So I figure that
the CPU would be about 20 deg. more or so. My alarm goes off at 185
deg. and shuts down at 195 and I didn't think there could be anyway it
could be that warm. When the game was off the thermal reader dropped
to fluctuating temps, between 113 and 119. I grabbed a fan and open up
the side panel and the fan dropped the temp another 10 deg. We tried
starting the game over again. This time the alarm went off around 132
deg. and it only took about 45 min to get that warm. After that we
just quit playing AGE. I turned off my computer this time. When my
computer came back on the CPU was only running at about 85 deg (with my
fan is still blowing into the machine) with minimal applications. I
then changed games and played Diablo II by myself since I didn't think
that it would get as hot with that game. I played for a few hours with
no problem. The temp was between 119 and 127 with no alarm. Then
yesterday I played AGE by myself and I was able to play a larger game
for longer but then the alarm eventually came on. When I went to save
the game the alarm stopped. I played so more and eventually it went
off again. This time I save and quit. My flat mate wanted to play AGE
again but we decided to play Diablo instead. I had no problems once
again except for a couple of time he had a phone call or had to take a
smoke break I would tab out of the game and do something else and
eventually the alarm would come on again. I would save the game and
close out and the alarm would stop. My flat mate eventually wanted to
play AGE again so I decided to open the box and see if I can figure out
what is wrong. I noticed the heat sink has dust caked on it. I take
it off and grab a can of air. I clean that and blow out the rest of my
computer too. I also fixed all of my thermal readers so that they were
better attached to the things that they were reading (3 of 4 had become
loose or fallen off). When I went to put the heat sink back on I
realized I just broke the glue seal that was mounting the heat sink to
the processor chip. Now there is only tried glue smeared on both the
heat sink and the processor. I didn't think that would make much of a
difference (someone can confirm if I am wrong) so I put it back on.
When I turned the computer back on there was an error when searching
for the CPU and said it had been changed. I then went into the BIOS to
see if maybe a setting was messed up. Everything looked fine. I did
change the temp for the alarm from 185 to 175. I saved and exited and
when it restarted it restarted just fine. However, when windows began
to load the alarm went off again. When I got to the welcome screen
instead of logging into my user I just turned off the computer again.
This time when I opened it up I took out the processor chip to make
sure there was nothing wrong looking with it and it looked fine. Here
is the kicker. After that I have never been able to boot my computer
back up. It powers up just fine. All of the lights work on the mother
board, for the wireless card, in the power supply, the optical drives
open and close, the thermal reader reads, however no single is sent to
the monitor. The light on the monitor stays orange. I thought maybe I
screwed up my VGA card when I was doing all the messing around so I put
in my old one and still the same thing.

Do you think that I killed my processor and if so wouldn't I still be
able to at least get to the first screen of the BIOS for it to tell me
my CPU is unreadable?

I'm not much of an Intel person, but here goes...

kaiser wrote:
> beeping. I immediately thought that it was overheating because I can't
> think of another reason why it would beep like that. I was surprised
> thought because I have a total of 9 fans in my computer.

First off, too many case fans just add more dust and noise to the
system. From my experience, dust kills more components than heat.

> Also, my thermal reader said that my CPU was only about 122 deg. F. The thermal
> reader at that time was only loosely connected to the heat sink
> (actually barely hanging on with the thermal tape). So I figure that
> the CPU would be about 20 deg. more or so. My alarm goes off at 185
> deg. and shuts down at 195 and I didn't think there could be anyway it
> could be that warm.

Since your temps weren't at alarm levels, are you sure it was a temp
alarm and not a voltage alarm or something similar? I'm really not
familiar with Pentium temps, though, and this is just a guess on my part.

> close out and the alarm would stop. My flat mate eventually wanted to
> play AGE again so I decided to open the box and see if I can figure out
> what is wrong. I noticed the heat sink has dust caked on it. I take
> it off and grab a can of air. I clean that and blow out the rest of my
> computer too.

Ahah...Dust! I bet your PSU is/was even worse than your CPU cooler.
Could also lead to an overheated power supply with irregular voltages.

> When I went to put the heat sink back on I
> realized I just broke the glue seal that was mounting the heat sink to
> the processor chip. Now there is only tried glue smeared on both the
> heat sink and the processor. I didn't think that would make much of a
> difference (someone can confirm if I am wrong) so I put it back on.

Its not glue. At least not on an AMD CPU. Its thermal compund that
helps pass heat from the CPU to the heatsink. You REALLY should have
cleaned both surfaces and reapplied fresh compound. You can use the
cheapest stuff you can find at any PC parts store. You can pay for more
expensive stuff if you want, but you wont get much if any better
performance for your money. Until you replace this compound, you really
shouldn't run the computer.


> After that I have never been able to boot my computer
> back up. It powers up just fine. All of the lights work on the mother
> board, for the wireless card, in the power supply, the optical drives
> open and close, the thermal reader reads, however no single is sent to
> the monitor. The light on the monitor stays orange. I thought maybe I
> screwed up my VGA card when I was doing all the messing around so I put
> in my old one and still the same thing.

Now that you don't even POST, you need to start at square one and swap
all critical components with known working ones. I would start with the
Power Supply. Then the CPU, memory, graphics and mainboard. be sure to
disconnect all other devices (Drives, PCI cards, extra fans, etc.)
before starting. If you dont have spare parts, you can pull the
motherboard, memory and Processor, and most PC repair places will
individually test each for a reasonable fee.
>
> Do you think that I killed my processor and if so wouldn't I still be
> able to at least get to the first screen of the BIOS for it to tell me
> my CPU is unreadable?

No, a bad CPU is one of many faults that will cause a computer to behave
exactly as you described.

-Dylan

we usually talk in Celsius temperatures so I would have to do a conversion
to see how hot your temperatures were... as a test, go into the bios and
disable the alarms for CPU fans and such and see what happens... it is
possible that your CPU cooling fan is getting noisy RPM feedback or other
such problem although, I have a problem with seeing that be an issue only
under a load of gaming.

try running the system with the side cover off for the duration of a game to
see if you still get the alarm... P4 processors have a built in thermal
protection and they cycle themselves down if they start to go overtemp so I
don't think you are hurting the CPU but anything is possible...

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified



"kaiser" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> My computer (which I have been building over the last year) has had no
> issues with any hardware problems until two nights ago...
>
> I have a P4 3.E processor (appr. 3.01 to .02 GHz) w/ HT. Abit IC7-G
> motherboard. ATI AGP Radeon 9550XL 256mb video card. 600w Ultra power
> supply.
>
> I was playing AGE III with one of my flat mates. About an hour and
> half into the game my computer's alarm started going off. After waking
> everyone in the room I turned off the game and the computer stopped
> beeping. I immediately thought that it was overheating because I can't
> think of another reason why it would beep like that. I was surprised
> thought because I have a total of 9 fans in my computer. Also, my
> thermal reader said that my CPU was only about 122 deg. F. The thermal
> reader at that time was only loosely connected to the heat sink
> (actually barely hanging on with the thermal tape). So I figure that
> the CPU would be about 20 deg. more or so. My alarm goes off at 185
> deg. and shuts down at 195 and I didn't think there could be anyway it
> could be that warm. When the game was off the thermal reader dropped
> to fluctuating temps, between 113 and 119. I grabbed a fan and open up
> the side panel and the fan dropped the temp another 10 deg. We tried
> starting the game over again. This time the alarm went off around 132
> deg. and it only took about 45 min to get that warm. After that we
> just quit playing AGE. I turned off my computer this time. When my
> computer came back on the CPU was only running at about 85 deg (with my
> fan is still blowing into the machine) with minimal applications. I
> then changed games and played Diablo II by myself since I didn't think
> that it would get as hot with that game. I played for a few hours with
> no problem. The temp was between 119 and 127 with no alarm. Then
> yesterday I played AGE by myself and I was able to play a larger game
> for longer but then the alarm eventually came on. When I went to save
> the game the alarm stopped. I played so more and eventually it went
> off again. This time I save and quit. My flat mate wanted to play AGE
> again but we decided to play Diablo instead. I had no problems once
> again except for a couple of time he had a phone call or had to take a
> smoke break I would tab out of the game and do something else and
> eventually the alarm would come on again. I would save the game and
> close out and the alarm would stop. My flat mate eventually wanted to
> play AGE again so I decided to open the box and see if I can figure out
> what is wrong. I noticed the heat sink has dust caked on it. I take
> it off and grab a can of air. I clean that and blow out the rest of my
> computer too. I also fixed all of my thermal readers so that they were
> better attached to the things that they were reading (3 of 4 had become
> loose or fallen off). When I went to put the heat sink back on I
> realized I just broke the glue seal that was mounting the heat sink to
> the processor chip. Now there is only tried glue smeared on both the
> heat sink and the processor. I didn't think that would make much of a
> difference (someone can confirm if I am wrong) so I put it back on.
> When I turned the computer back on there was an error when searching
> for the CPU and said it had been changed. I then went into the BIOS to
> see if maybe a setting was messed up. Everything looked fine. I did
> change the temp for the alarm from 185 to 175. I saved and exited and
> when it restarted it restarted just fine. However, when windows began
> to load the alarm went off again. When I got to the welcome screen
> instead of logging into my user I just turned off the computer again.
> This time when I opened it up I took out the processor chip to make
> sure there was nothing wrong looking with it and it looked fine. Here
> is the kicker. After that I have never been able to boot my computer
> back up. It powers up just fine. All of the lights work on the mother
> board, for the wireless card, in the power supply, the optical drives
> open and close, the thermal reader reads, however no single is sent to
> the monitor. The light on the monitor stays orange. I thought maybe I
> screwed up my VGA card when I was doing all the messing around so I put
> in my old one and still the same thing.
>
> Do you think that I killed my processor and if so wouldn't I still be
> able to at least get to the first screen of the BIOS for it to tell me
> my CPU is unreadable?
>

also, don't forget to check for dust build-up in the cooling fins, fan
blades, etc.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified



"kaiser" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> My computer (which I have been building over the last year) has had no
> issues with any hardware problems until two nights ago...
>
> I have a P4 3.E processor (appr. 3.01 to .02 GHz) w/ HT. Abit IC7-G
> motherboard. ATI AGP Radeon 9550XL 256mb video card. 600w Ultra power
> supply.
>
> I was playing AGE III with one of my flat mates. About an hour and
> half into the game my computer's alarm started going off. After waking
> everyone in the room I turned off the game and the computer stopped
> beeping. I immediately thought that it was overheating because I can't
> think of another reason why it would beep like that. I was surprised
> thought because I have a total of 9 fans in my computer. Also, my
> thermal reader said that my CPU was only about 122 deg. F. The thermal
> reader at that time was only loosely connected to the heat sink
> (actually barely hanging on with the thermal tape). So I figure that
> the CPU would be about 20 deg. more or so. My alarm goes off at 185
> deg. and shuts down at 195 and I didn't think there could be anyway it
> could be that warm. When the game was off the thermal reader dropped
> to fluctuating temps, between 113 and 119. I grabbed a fan and open up
> the side panel and the fan dropped the temp another 10 deg. We tried
> starting the game over again. This time the alarm went off around 132
> deg. and it only took about 45 min to get that warm. After that we
> just quit playing AGE. I turned off my computer this time. When my
> computer came back on the CPU was only running at about 85 deg (with my
> fan is still blowing into the machine) with minimal applications. I
> then changed games and played Diablo II by myself since I didn't think
> that it would get as hot with that game. I played for a few hours with
> no problem. The temp was between 119 and 127 with no alarm. Then
> yesterday I played AGE by myself and I was able to play a larger game
> for longer but then the alarm eventually came on. When I went to save
> the game the alarm stopped. I played so more and eventually it went
> off again. This time I save and quit. My flat mate wanted to play AGE
> again but we decided to play Diablo instead. I had no problems once
> again except for a couple of time he had a phone call or had to take a
> smoke break I would tab out of the game and do something else and
> eventually the alarm would come on again. I would save the game and
> close out and the alarm would stop. My flat mate eventually wanted to
> play AGE again so I decided to open the box and see if I can figure out
> what is wrong. I noticed the heat sink has dust caked on it. I take
> it off and grab a can of air. I clean that and blow out the rest of my
> computer too. I also fixed all of my thermal readers so that they were
> better attached to the things that they were reading (3 of 4 had become
> loose or fallen off). When I went to put the heat sink back on I
> realized I just broke the glue seal that was mounting the heat sink to
> the processor chip. Now there is only tried glue smeared on both the
> heat sink and the processor. I didn't think that would make much of a
> difference (someone can confirm if I am wrong) so I put it back on.
> When I turned the computer back on there was an error when searching
> for the CPU and said it had been changed. I then went into the BIOS to
> see if maybe a setting was messed up. Everything looked fine. I did
> change the temp for the alarm from 185 to 175. I saved and exited and
> when it restarted it restarted just fine. However, when windows began
> to load the alarm went off again. When I got to the welcome screen
> instead of logging into my user I just turned off the computer again.
> This time when I opened it up I took out the processor chip to make
> sure there was nothing wrong looking with it and it looked fine. Here
> is the kicker. After that I have never been able to boot my computer
> back up. It powers up just fine. All of the lights work on the mother
> board, for the wireless card, in the power supply, the optical drives
> open and close, the thermal reader reads, however no single is sent to
> the monitor. The light on the monitor stays orange. I thought maybe I
> screwed up my VGA card when I was doing all the messing around so I put
> in my old one and still the same thing.
>
> Do you think that I killed my processor and if so wouldn't I still be
> able to at least get to the first screen of the BIOS for it to tell me
> my CPU is unreadable?
>

Dylan C wrote:
> I'm not much of an Intel person, but here goes...
>
> kaiser wrote:
> > beeping. I immediately thought that it was overheating because I can't
> > think of another reason why it would beep like that. I was surprised
> > thought because I have a total of 9 fans in my computer.
>
> First off, too many case fans just add more dust and noise to the
> system. From my experience, dust kills more components than heat.
>

Actually there are 10 fans in my comp but they aren't all case fanse.
Technically I only have 5 case fans. Two on the front blowing in and
two on the back blowing out (these four are the only ones I added
because the case was built with fan mounts that I just mounted fans
to). There is on the side panel blowing out (it came with the case I
didn't add it). then I have a fan on the CPU heat sink and on the
chipset heatsink (it came with the mother board I didn't add it). Then
my power supply came with two fans. One blowing into the PSU inside
the computer case and then one on the other side blowing out. Then my
thermal reader has a little fan which is on on the fron of the case.
The thermal reader sits between my two optical drives and the two case
fans (that I added) are at the bottom of the case.

> > Also, my thermal reader said that my CPU was only about 122 deg. F. The thermal
> > reader at that time was only loosely connected to the heat sink
> > (actually barely hanging on with the thermal tape). So I figure that
> > the CPU would be about 20 deg. more or so. My alarm goes off at 185
> > deg. and shuts down at 195 and I didn't think there could be anyway it
> > could be that warm.
>
> Since your temps weren't at alarm levels, are you sure it was a temp
> alarm and not a voltage alarm or something similar? I'm really not
> familiar with Pentium temps, though, and this is just a guess on my part.
>

I am not sure if it was a temp alarm vs. a voltage alarm. I only
assumed that because I don't have enough stuff in my computer to max
out my 600w PSU. Also, the alarm stopped when I closed the game. I am
also not sure what the actually temp was of the CPU because my thermal
reader only reads the heat sink and not the chip itself and I am not
sure how much hotter the chip is than the outside of the heat sink.

> > close out and the alarm would stop. My flat mate eventually wanted to
> > play AGE again so I decided to open the box and see if I can figure out
> > what is wrong. I noticed the heat sink has dust caked on it. I take
> > it off and grab a can of air. I clean that and blow out the rest of my
> > computer too.
>
> Ahah...Dust! I bet your PSU is/was even worse than your CPU cooler.
> Could also lead to an overheated power supply with irregular voltages.
>

Ok how do I clean out my PSU. The side panel of my PSU is clear and I
see some dust in it but it isn't really that bad. About as much in it
as on my book case (I should go dust that too). I took my PSU out and
looked at the other side and it is clean. There is only a little dust
on the side with the fans. I blow throw it with the can of air and
some of the loose dust came out. Only enough to sneeze but not enought
to make it look any different inside.

> > When I went to put the heat sink back on I
> > realized I just broke the glue seal that was mounting the heat sink to
> > the processor chip. Now there is only tried glue smeared on both the
> > heat sink and the processor. I didn't think that would make much of a
> > difference (someone can confirm if I am wrong) so I put it back on.
>
> Its not glue. At least not on an AMD CPU. Its thermal compund that
> helps pass heat from the CPU to the heatsink. You REALLY should have
> cleaned both surfaces and reapplied fresh compound. You can use the
> cheapest stuff you can find at any PC parts store. You can pay for more
> expensive stuff if you want, but you wont get much if any better
> performance for your money. Until you replace this compound, you really
> shouldn't run the computer.
>

No you are right it is a thermal compound even with the the Pentiums.
I can go buy some more. Is there also some sort of special cleaning
angent to remove the old stuff?

Also, without the compound do think my CPU could have been damaged just
from turning it on?

>
> > After that I have never been able to boot my computer
> > back up. It powers up just fine. All of the lights work on the mother
> > board, for the wireless card, in the power supply, the optical drives
> > open and close, the thermal reader reads, however no single is sent to
> > the monitor. The light on the monitor stays orange. I thought maybe I
> > screwed up my VGA card when I was doing all the messing around so I put
> > in my old one and still the same thing.
>
> Now that you don't even POST, you need to start at square one and swap
> all critical components with known working ones. I would start with the
> Power Supply. Then the CPU, memory, graphics and mainboard. be sure to
> disconnect all other devices (Drives, PCI cards, extra fans, etc.)
> before starting. If you dont have spare parts, you can pull the
> motherboard, memory and Processor, and most PC repair places will
> individually test each for a reasonable fee.

I was afraid of this. I strip it down and start over to see what I
get. I will let you know what happens

> >
> > Do you think that I killed my processor and if so wouldn't I still be
> > able to at least get to the first screen of the BIOS for it to tell me
> > my CPU is unreadable?
>
> No, a bad CPU is one of many faults that will cause a computer to behave
> exactly as you described.
>
> -Dylan

I can't go to the BIOS now because my computer doesn't send a signal to
the monitor so I can't read anything. I am not sure if the computer is
running not. All of the lights and fans come on. The optical drives
work and thermal reader works. Everything is getting power except my
monitor doesn't turn on.

When the computer was working I did try playing with the cover off and
I brought another fan over. BTW, my room is about 15 deg. Celsius so I
was blowing some cool air into the case.

yep I took my can of air to all of my fans and blew them off.

ok I have stripped everything down so that the only thing plugged in is
the motherboard which powers the CPU/heat sink fan, chipset heat sink
fan, one case system fan (the system fan), and VGA card. And I can't
the same thing. Everything powers on just fine but my monitor still
receives no signal and the light remains orange.

I even unplugged my CPU hoping that I would leas get a warning beep
letting me know that there is no CPU but still nothing. My computer
right now works just as good without a processor as it does with one.

Posts that quickly blame problem on heat usually means the
poster did not know where to start or learned why electronics
fail. IOW heat is not an issue with only one PSU fan. Each
fan after that should cause only single digit or tenths of
degree temperature change - totally irrelevant. Too many fans
create other problems. Dust should never be a problem in any
machine. But with too many fans, even an extremely rare
excessive dust problem can occur.

Still this does not say (yet) where to start. For example,
posted are classic symptoms of a failed power supply. Lights
can illuminate, fans spin, and power supply is still 100%
defective. First thing to measure is power supply voltages
with a 3.5 digit multimeter. Never make a single change.
First measure. I did not say motherboard voltage monitor for
good reason. That meter is required.

Confirm the system is constructed on a foundation that has
not crumbled. Use the meter. Purple wire (power supply to
motherboard), with power off, must measure above 4.87 volts.
Green wire must measure more than 2 volts. Then when power
switch is pressed, green wire voltage must drop to less than
0.8 volts (and purple wire voltage stay in limits). Gray wire
must be much more than 2.4 volts when power switch is
pressed. Then yellow, orange and red wires must measure more
than 11.7, 3.22, and 4.87.

Do all these voltages exist? Then power supply is OK. Move
on to other suspects. And still nothing has been removed.

With problems announced, you should have immediately
consulted the system (event) logs and device manager to read
what problems existed before a system crash.

Now try to boot (maybe from floppy) to run comprehensive
hardware diagnostics. These diagnostics are provided for free
by all responsible computer manufacturers. Otherwise you most
locate individual diagnostics from component manufacturers or
third parties. This assumes you can boot the machine without
Windows. IOW does machine appear to read floppy drive or
CD-ROM? If not, then we move on - and still have not changed
anything.

It appears you tried to shotgun a solution. It may or may
not have complicated the problem. Strip system down to only
motherboard, power supply, CPU, power switch, and speaker. No
keyboard, peripheral cards, mouse, video, drives, or DRAM
strips. That's right. Not even memory. Now power up
system. If that minimal hardware is working, then speaker
beeps. If not, you have the short list of defective suspects
- minus the power supply that you know is working because you
used a 3.5 digit multimeter.

Of course, plug power cord was disconnected from wall before
removing anything. That right. No power switch is even
sufficient. Power cord must have been removed. Otherwise you
may have made more damage. Also you were using proper static
electric protection including a room with more than 40%
humidity.

Meanwhile, eliminate at least seven fans. The CPU has a
fan. Power supply has a fan. And just in case the power
supply fan (which is all any computer case needs) fails,
install one more so that airflow is maintained if its power
supply fan fails. Only hype would promote so many fans.

Did heat damage the Intel chip? Not even possible. Even
back in the 486 days, any Intel chip that might overheat,
instead, protects itself automatically. This being different
from AMDs that could self-destruct. Just another reason why
heat could not damage your CPU.

Another fact to collect before ever making changes. Did you
examine every motherboard electrolytic capacitor for bulging -
a problem created by overseas counterfeiting? Last thing on
your list of possible damaged components was the Intel
processor - that is until you removed it. Now even static
electricity could have caused damage. Just another reason why
the problem is identified before trying to fix anything.

Numbers and other information collected should be posted
here for numerous reason. One reason is that voltage numbers
also report other facts.

You posted a temperature of 195 somewhere. If on CPU, then
CPU shutdown to protect itself. No fans were going to solve
this - a human created problem - probably due to mismounting
of CPU heatsink or failure of CPU fan. Not a heat problem.
Instead a human assembly created problem. Ignore the hype
about heat. That is only promoted by those who never first
learn numbers. 195F number would be useful information.

One final point. Another diagnostic tool is heat. We heat
computers to locate hardware problems. Standard test of any
minimally acceptable PC is to run it in a 100 degree F room.
A system heated with a hairdryer on high is in 'pigs heaven' -
works just fine - without all those fans - if hardware is
working. Hardware that appears to work at 70F and fails under
a hair dryer is 100% defective. Heat being a tool to locate
defective hardware. Those who never learned, instead, cure
defective hardware with more fans - which is why Tim Allen
uses that as a joke, "More Power".

kaiser wrote:
> yep I took my can of air to all of my fans and blew them off.