XP Pro sutsdown spontaneously

[MiracleMan]

I have a 4 year old no-name machine w/XP Pro (fresh installed 6+ months ago when I got a new HD), Gigabyte KVT800Pro board, AMD 3200+, 1.5GB RAM, 2 HD: 1 150GB & 1 60GB. Sound and video is through the board. Only LinkSys 10/100 LAN card was put in afterward. All hotfixed & updated. Drivers are fine and have not been recently updated or rolledback. Running Avast antivirus, Sygate firewall and run Adaware & Spybot once or twice a month...

About a week ago this machine which has been brilliant began shutting down
spontaneously. It will start up no problem, run for a few minutes (5+/-) then shut down. No BSOD. Just the 'signal lost' message comes up on my Acer flatscreen, and it shuts down as if I had done it myself. There are no event logs showing problems with anything. I've tried running error check but it shuts down before I it gets barely started. I also downloaded SiSoft's
Sandra to see if it could register any problems, however it doesn't have enough time either.

I have been dong some investigating before writing and it seems to point
toward either a power supply problem or a heat issue. I noticed that under the fan directly over the CPU the heat sink(?) was clogged with dust so I cleaned that and reinstalled. It lasted a little longer (a few seconds) but still shuts down.

Also if you DO think that it's either of these problems I haven't replaced anything like this before so I'd need some help or a point in the right direction.

Thank you in advance.

[The Wise Monkey]

Try something like Speedfan - its a little program that measures fan speed (duh) and system temperatures - it will help you see if its an overheating issue.

Also, you were right in thinking that it may be a faulty power supply. Try and rule out overheating first - some thermal paste and a new cpu fan is a lot cheaper than a new PSU.

[MiracleMan]

OK I'll give SpeedFan a try then if needed I'll hit MicroCentre and look for a replacement fan first and see how it goes.
Is it difficult to properly install one? I had no problem taking out & replacing the existing one when I cleaned it, but I'm wondering about the thermal compound (arctic silver has been recommended). I guess I'm asking if I could kill my machine.

[Jamie Nixx]

Core temp is much better and more precise than speedfan, although speedfan is good.

I had the same problem a few weeks back, and it was the motherboard drivers causing it, in the end i had to install windows again.

PSU or overheating CPU are likely though.

[The Wise Monkey]

I use Intel Thermal Analysis Tool which is one of the best, but Speedfan is probably easier to use. :)

[MiracleMan]

Hi all...
I used SpeedFan and yes it was indeed running hot. I went to MiroCentre and got a replacement but I've noticed that one of the tabs that the clamps click onto has broken. I understand that I can get a replacement for that too, but it's not screwed onto the board but held in place by screw-shaped snap-ins. I can't pull these out or pop them out from the reverse of the board...I can't get to them. Will I just have to break these off?

[Jamie Nixx]

I wouldn't advise breaking them off, you don't want to have to buy another motherboard do you?

If one of the clips has broken off thats probably the reason your CPU was running hot in the first place.

Can you take a pic of your board.

[MiracleMan]

apparently I can't seem to attach pics. There isn't a 'manage attachments' button as described in the FAQ

[Jamie Nixx]

Go to imageshack to convert your pic to website format, then take the code and copy and paste it into the insert image box.

:)

[MiracleMan]

Here it is. Sorry for the quality...I had to take it with my phone.
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/2433/0209071252xj0.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0209071252xj0.jpg)