Do you think my PC is overheated?

[Angrist]

Lately my PC has crashed a lot. Sometimes it looks softwarerelated (FireFox caused a lot of trouble so I'm trying to use Opera more), at other times I feel like it's a hardware problem.

Because my previous PC had an overheating problem, I decided to install SpeedFan to monitor the temperatures. These are the temperatures when my PC is pretty idle (the only thing I was running was iTunes, FireFox and Windows Explorer):

GPU: nVidia GeForce 8600 GT.
163°F

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
4 cores:
142, 136, 127 & 131°F.

SpeedFan does give a flame symbol for all these, which I assume means it's hot. But my automatic fans aren't on yet, so it might not be too hot.

What do you think? Do I have an overheating problem?

I'll go play a game of SC2 now and see what temperatures it gives me then.

[Vampyr]

Maybe your fans are broken and that's why they're not on, and why your computer is overheating.

[Angrist]

No that's not it, my fans sometimes kick in (usually when I've played a game for a while, so I assume it's the GPUs fan).

Ok this is right after playing a game of SC2 (graphical heavy):
GPU: 171°F
CPUs: 153, 145, 138, 140°F.

That's not a very big difference...

[Vampyr]

Those temps are on the warm side, but they aren't ridiculous or anything. You could look up the specification for your CPU and see what the highest temperature it can safely run at is. It's probably quite a bit higher than those temps.

[Angrist]

Hm, then I wonder what the problem can be. I ran anti-virus, nothing came up.

Any tips?
And thanks.

[Vampyr]

I had a laptop that consistently ran too hot before (it was running hotter than yours, though, about 70 degrees Celsius).

Nothing I did really helped it, but killing processes that don't need to be running is probably your best bet.

If it's not a laptop and you can actually get into it, you might want to consider buying more or better fans or getting a better heat sink. You may also be able to get some software that lets you manually control the fans or set them to come on at lower temperatures.

You could also try doing a clean install of Windows. Never hurts to do that once in a while and it pretty much eliminates any software related issues.

[Angrist]

Ehm..... my GPU is running 70°C. I thought you guys used Fahrenheit so I converted it all.
My CPUs are between 50 and 60°C.

It's a desktop of... 2 or 3 years old. When was Crysis out? I got my PC a bit later than that.

I'm considering the Windows reinstall, but I hate reinstalling all the other stuff.
I guess I'll defragmentate first. Edit: Hah, it turns out that my PC has been defragmentating itself automatically all these years. I sometimes wondered what that HD noise was.

[Bube]

Nice specs, btw. Never knew what your computer was like

How much RAM do you have? I've been away from the hardware scene for quite some time, so I can't really think well enough, but I remember that a PC I had had run into some RAM problems. Everything was working fine, but then started to crash and stuff. Doubled the RAM and everything went back to normal.

And even though it doesn't seem like a GPU problem, don't forget to upgrade the drivers

[Angrist]

4GB of ram. 4x1 I noticed today in the bios.

Ah, I will indeed update the GPU drivers, thanks for the tip!

[Bube]

Ahem, yes, I meant update I hate it when I make a mistake

And wow, you bought an almost maxed-out PC at the time No wonder you were so good at SC2

[KillerGremlin]

For overheating I typically go about it with this order of operations:

1) Look for CPU-raping processes. Although if both the GPU and CPU are toasty it is likely not software related
2) Open case, clean dust
3) Install fan monitor program and manually try to lower temps (which you have already done)
4) Check case fans. What type of tower do you have? How is the airflow?
5) Check heatsinks, GPU/CPU fans, thermal paste

And that is that. I have never had to water cool or anything like that. However at some point I would like to water cool a case just to say I have....

[Vampyr]

Can't believe I forgot to mention cleaning out dust. Grab a can of air and get in there. DON'T SHAKE THE CAN, or turn it upside down.

[manasecret]

Best way to get a huge boost in performance these days is to get one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227394

Solid-state disk drives -- nothing beats 'em for performance.

[Bube]

Aren't those good for load times? How do they affect general performance?

[Vampyr]

Anything that requires going to the hard drive for something will be nearly instant. I have one in my work computer, everything is so snappy.