OK, spent the day fooling with this. Since it happens every time I run my virus checker and/or my disk backup, I decided to tackle that first. I had a little success, although I am unsure what it tells us…
I first ran my virus checker against my D drive only. It crashed almost immediately. Then ran it against my C drive (they are two separate drives.) It ran for quite a while, but also crashed.
I then reran it against my C drive, but this time I put the speed slider at its lowest point. It took twice as long to run, but finished the entire drive.
If I can make my backup utility run more slowly, and thus allow it to complete, I will be content to ignore this issue for a while…
Have you done anything anyone suggested?
Indeed. I cleaned it out several times. (I even used a vacuum.)
The CPU-only benchmark did nothing.
As mentioned upthread, to my untrained eye there are no bad capacitors.
There is no way to set the fans at all via the BIOS, so I could not set them on high.
I won’t try taking the CPU out and putting “new stuff” on because I don’t know what the stuff is, nor am I comfortable enough taking a CPU out to do so at this time. If things get worse I may be willing to try that. Right now the risk/reward ratio isn’t there for me, since I don’t know what I’m doing.
I had already had the box open and was aiming a desk fan at it, but that hasn’t helped.
Speedfan is reporting that my harddrives’ temps are zero.
The backup software allowed me to set its rate as well, so I was able to get a complete backup and a complete virus scan. Those are the only two times I have ever noticed a thermal event.
Oh, alright. Have you also tried taking out the HD to let it rest in air? Are you able to see the front case fan that is likely pointing at the HD to check if it is working?
All the fans are definitely working. (Although there are more of them than I realized, so it is feasible that I’m missing one.)
Taking the hard drives out isn’t a bad idea, and I may try that, depending on how difficult they are to get out. Especially since the events only happen during a backup or a virus scan.
I have a friend who is an engineer coming to visit in about 4 weeks, so I’m going to have him look at the capacitors.
If however, running the backup and virus software at slower speeds works, I’ll probably be content. I’ll get a new computer this time next year anyway. At that time I’ll probably go for a liquid-cooled computer.
An old thread, but just a quick update.
First, thanks for all the replies.
Second, I ended up having to replace the motherboard and the heat sink. OK, technically I’m still waiting to do that, but the parts are ordered. The thing has degenerated to shutting down within 15 minutes of turning it on. (Although if I keep the office at 66 I can often get several hours from it. I actually like things really cool, but that is too cool, even for me!)
Even though I’m a geek, I hesitate replacing this myself. I’m all thumbs when it comes to such things and get frustrated quickly. I have a buddy who says he has replaced several and for a couple of beers he’ll come over and help. I’m hoping he’ll have time this weekend.
Again, I appreciate all the help.
Last update, I promise (OK, maybe an update later if there is a failure):
The new MOBO is in and the machine has been running the virus scan for over an hours. It is MUCH quieter. The new heat sink is entirely air-cooled, whereas the old one looked to be a fluid-cooled pump.
With the board out, I still see no no bad capacitors and neither did the friend who helped me.
We were worried that the heat sinks were different, but the new one seems to be working. In the past, it was not able to do a virus scan at all.
One last thanks to all of you who responded.
Yikes! I have one of those, so I’m going to try to keep that in mind in case I begin having that problem.