Longklaw.com

I’m seriously annoyed with my desktop computer at home. The computer, which is only about a year old, recently started shutting down on its own. I noticed after the big April Windows Update, my icons weren’t showing up in taskbar. Maybe I should’ve done a system restore then, but I didn’t. The shutdown problems started soon after that, so I figured the update might have been causing my computer to act crazy. Now I’m not so sure about that.

Using software that came with the motherboard, I checked the CPU temperature. Mostly it runs around 180° F, but if I open up a browser or start playing music, I’ll see the temperature jump to a cool 220° F. Ouch! So, I think that may be why my computer is shutting down. All the fans inside are still working, so I don’t know what could have changed.

I have also noticed that some of the decorative lights on the computer case are no longer working. Maybe this weekend I’ll take the time to look at it more closely. I’m not really a hardware person, but maybe I can figure something out.

I can’t do anything intensive on it without it shutting down, so for now it’s mostly just a really large mp3 player.

Any suggestions?

Update, 5/10
I replaced the CPU fan and heatsink and I also added a second case fan. Now the system temperature is around 75°F and the CPU temperature is around 100°F. It’s a little louder than before, but at least it’s cool. A cool computer is a happy computer.