My Crappy Computer

[Poppatrunk]

So, lately my computer seems to be getting lazy in it's old age. Randomly it shuts itself off and when I reboot I get some error msg that says something to the effect of ..."Overclocking failed..check settings or load defaults...".

Long story short I figure it was just the fans being dirty so I got a couple cans of air and went crazy but it's still craping out on me from time to time! :wtf:

is there any test I can run that'll tell me what's going on? my computer is only a few years old I can't imagine having to replace a fan or some other component already.

any advice appreciated.
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[Stanley Burrell]

Cold, ventilated areas for the lappy to breathe.

And if you decide to buy a new lappy, don't buy any of this microscopic technological bullshit; invest in a wider monitor, for the sheer sake of having more flowing air within the laptop itself, which reduces circuit melting/breaking/nuke-u-lar asplosions.

[Bobmuhthol]

All computers are laptops now?

Anyway, are you actually trying to overclock?

[Poppatrunk]

no that's just what it says once it randomly shuts off. Once it happens again I'll write down exactly what it says.
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[Poppatrunk]

no that's just what it says once it randomly shuts off. Once it happens again I'll write down exactly what it says.

Well that didn't take long. It happened again while I was playing WoW. This time a different message came up all it said was "CPU OVERHEATING TEMPERATURE ERROR" press F1 to continue.

I did that and it loaded up fine and I can do basic things like surf the web, check my email, and type on random message boards but once I try to play a game it craps out after about 15 minutes.

All I'm looking for is a website or program that could run a diagnostic on my machine and to tell me what the heck is going on.

:wtf:
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[Numbers]

It's overheating. It doesn't sound like you're overclocking, but you may have been getting that error message since overclocking heats up a processor like a mofo. Depending on where you bought you computer, it could have come preconfigured to be overclocked.

Point a desk fan at it or something.

[Katt]

If you are playing WoW and are finding your computer to be "sluggish/lazy" a lot of the time just updating your graphics card can make a hell of a difference. I thought my computer was slow as crap till I realize it just needed a new graphics card. I would definatly try and fix the heating problem though before you put money into a new card.

I am a little confused, is it a laptop or a regular pc? How many fans do you have in it? is it sitting on carpet/pillow/bed/lap? Sometimes putting it up on a small box will help get more air too it.

I've also have had a few computers I've had to put a small fan next to blowing into the machine to keep it cool while i save up for a new one. Hehe.

[radamanthys]

Yea, answer ^ those questions.

[Poppatrunk]

It's a Lunky ass PC not a laptop. It has 3 fans and it sits on my floor about foot i from the wall. Orginally I purchased it with the intent of using it for school, at the time I wanted to learn how to make video games.

But to my surprise it's a lot easier to play video games then actually make them. So I suppose it's possible it came from the factory overclocked or whatever.

it runs Wow fine, no lag no nothing and next thing I know POOF owned by overheating!

I've been meaning to get a new graphics card the one I have is intended for cad design. but I don't play computer games whole lot to justify dropping $200 bucks on a new card. I guess if I could someone to buy my old card that would be a different story.
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[kheldarin]

I had the same problem with my HP, so I bought a new case and now everything works smoooothly. I bought the Antec 900, it comes with four huge fans and at only around 100 bucks, its not bad.

My guess is there isn't enough air ventilation.

[Stanley Burrell]

It's a Lunky ass PC not a laptop. It has 3 fans and it sits on my floor about foot i from the wall. Orginally I purchased it with the intent of using it for school, at the time I wanted to learn how to make video games.

But to my surprise it's a lot easier to play video games then actually make them. So I suppose it's possible it came from the factory overclocked or whatever.

it runs Wow fine, no lag no nothing and next thing I know POOF owned by overheating!

I've been meaning to get a new graphics card the one I have is intended for cad design. but I don't play computer games whole lot to justify dropping $200 bucks on a new card. I guess if I could someone to buy my old card that would be a different story.

Are you using the fans as already-built-in hardware or did you fix it up with three fans of its own? And if so, are they plugged into a surge protector? And also if so, is it flashing the red light of short circuiting doom in your general direction?

You want to keep your lappy and/or giant rectangle cool and aired out, but you don't want to pull an Xbox 360 Intercooler where you're diverting power from the actual laptop itself (not that the Intercooler doesn't work, you just need to make sure you have an unlimited power supply/fail safe beforehand.)

Also, I'm imagining you don't have a space heater, etc., plugged into the same line as the compy itself.

The only other thing I can think of, for now, is dust accumulation. Is your desktop not on a desk? And on a thick carpeted floor, or something? Three working fans should help with that though, I dunno.

[Bobmuhthol]

A problem I had once was my CPU fan was set to like 40% speed, and games would make it get way way hot and then it would switch to 100% speed until it cooled down, and just kept repeating that cycle. You might want to check your fan settings in BIOS to make sure they're operating at a fast enough RPM.

[Celephais]

Go download some monitoring software, they'll tell you how your fans are running and don't require much savy. Start here: http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php