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CPU Overheating

F

Fazzar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 22, 2004
Messages
290
My 2004 Alienware will not run. It shuts itself down within 5-10 seconds of boot and says it shutdown because of a CPU event (overheating).

My CPU: INTEL PENTIUM 4 560 3.6 1MB L2 CACHE 800MHZ FSB LGA775


I opened up the rig, everything looks normal, the fans are running, including the CPU fan.

Any ideas what is going on? Do I need a new CPU/Fan combo?
 
It's possible the thermal paste on the CPU has dried up. Take off the CPU heatsink and apply some new thermal paste, and then see if the computer will start up.
 
Might be a stupid question but have you cleaned out the HS of dust? What are the temps in bios?
 
remove, and reapply. Probably not fit perfectly on mobo, being a little bit off will do that to you.
 
Thanks. I've done all of the above. Cleaned everything out thoroughly. Also cleaned off the old cracked thermal paste and applied new. Unfortunately, after the post beep (which is better than before), nothing else happens... it just runs with no bios or OS loading. I wonder if the overheating smoked the chip or the motherboard :(
 
Possibly a video card issue as well. To be honest, it could be a number of different things, and there's no way to find out for sure without swapping out parts and testing everything.
 
Thanks. I can buy an identical replacement process for $44. If the board is toast, well that will be a bit more involved and I might take that opportunity to do a general upgrade.

Is it more likely the chip fried due to overheating? I did confirm the thermal compound was dried and barely making contact with the CPU fan.

Or is it more likely the board got smoked?

I'm confident the video card is fine.
 
Fazzar said:
Thanks. I can buy an identical replacement process for $44. If the board is toast, well that will be a bit more involved and I might take that opportunity to do a general upgrade.

Is it more likely the chip fried due to overheating? I did confirm the thermal compound was dried and barely making contact with the CPU fan.

Or is it more likely the board got smoked?

I'm confident the video card is fine.
Click to expand...

So one morning you just woke up and it was dead? Do you know if or what you did to cause this?
 
GonzoP said:
So one morning you just woke up and it was dead? Do you know if or what you did to cause this?
Click to expand...

As posted above, it looks like the thermal compound on the chip dried out and ceased to make good contact with the fan. Within 5-10 seconds of booting, the PC will shut itself down with a bios message of CPU Event (overheating).

After cleaning everything and applying new thermal compound (artic silver) the result is still the same.

So yes, one day it was fine, the next day it's a message "CPU Event (Overheating)"
 
Fazzar said:
Is it more likely the chip fried due to overheating? I did confirm the thermal compound was dried and barely making contact with the CPU fan.
Click to expand...

P4s have built-in overheat protection, so they will shut off before burning out. I seriously doubt the issue is the processor.
 
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