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Hi! I have about a 1 and 1/2 year old computer and when it runs as it should it's great! I can play Elder Scrolls Oblivion on it without any problems (until it overheats...). But, it often doesn't run as it should. I've noticed a few problems with it and I can't find any help on the internet through google searches so I hope some one here could help me out.

1. The graphics card overheats when playing visually advanced games (Elder Scrolls Oblivion, FEAR, Rainbow Six Vegas). All the fans in the computer are running properly, including the one on the graphics card. (There's the heat sink, graphics card fan, a fan on the back, and another fan on the power supply). So what could be causing this overheating?

2. When I go to shut down or restart the computer it often goes to the blue screen like it should where it says "Windows is saving your settings" but it never restarts from there. I let it sit for 1 hour straight and it just keeps saying that so I end up having to push the power button. Doing this hasn't cause any problems as of yet but it should be fixed.

3. Sometimes windows just doesn't open up an internet related program. For example earlier today I had nothing open so I went to open up firefox and it looked like it was going to load (loading icon popped up), but it never did. So I clicked on it again and it didn't load. Then I tried to open up Internet Explorer but that had the same problem. So I went into the process list and it showed 2 firefox programs running and 1 internet explorer, but the application list was empty.

4. Sometimes a program just stops responding and puts the whole computer into a spasm and I can't really do anything because of the lag. So I go into the process list and try to end the process that caused it, but after I click "end process" the program doesn't end, so I wait but it still doesn't end... so i have to restart which then causes problem 2.

5. The internet itself sometimes crashes on this computer so I can't check email (using outlook) and can't load websites. But I use the same internet that my dad uses and he doesn't have any problems at all.

6. When I try to delete something it usually takes a good 20 seconds until the box pops up asking if I want to delete the file or not which is very annoying. And another problems that is similar to this is it takes a while to right click a file for the first time. I right click it and then it takes about 10 seconds to load the list of things to do but then if I right click a file again it loads like it should (under a second).

I tried this so far to try to fix any problems:

1. Did hundreds of virus scans using Spybot(ran this in safemode too) and Avast! Home Edition(can't run this in safemode because the resolution is too small)
2. Defragmented
3. Cleaned out temporary files and such
4. Uninstalled unused programs

System Specs:
-2xPentium 4 Cpu 3.00 GHz
-Nvidia GeForce 6800GT
-3GB RAM
-Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 32-Bit

Other notes:
I have a mirror drive that is mirroring my S drive (where i store documents and such) and once a week it backups the C drive (program files). I do this using Acronis True Image Home.

I have one final question that I figured I would just add in here then make a new thread... I have 2 processors running but I don't think they are running very efficiently so would installing 64-bit OS help this? Also how do I find out if I can run a 64-Bit OS?

Thanks for any help on any of these problems!

1. Possible the heatsink on the GPU needs new thermal paste, just a guess.

As for the other problems, I would probably back up your data and do a system repair (which reinstalls system files and whatnot). If that fails, i'd just wipe the drive and start over fresh since you've already ran virus tools and spyware.

As for the 64-bit OS, you can find out by looking at your processors. Are they 64-bit? If you're talking about two P4 cpus, then no you can't. If you have the P4e cpu (P4 with prescott core), then task manager will report 2 CPUs because of the hyper threading, but you don't actually have two CPUs

Thanks for the quick response! I'll look into the thermal paste and for the system repair does it do anything to other hard drives? Like could it wipe out my S and Z drive (Z is the backup drive)?

Thanks for the 64-Bit information... I guess I'll just have to stick with 32-bit but I am positive that I have 2 processors because the device manager lists 2 processors.

Just what I was gonna suggest Phaelax, that stuff can dry up, especially if the heatsink is not seated properly.

One thing I would try and do first of, is change your memory simms, or at least try with just 1 simm. In the last month I have replaced my GPU, CPU, Motherboard, and just yesterday, after all that I had to replace the memory as well, which could have been the problem all along!.

See if you can borrow some, it's the easiest thing to swap out on your PC so try that first... and I'll try and take my own advice in future.

Thermal Paste goes on the top of you cpu before you put the heat sink on, it suppose to help. I would suggest going here and downloading speed fan to monitor the heat http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

Thanks for the responses! But Van B what do you mean by memory simms? And I have HWMonitor and the only thing that gets hot is the graphics card, everything else is normal heat. I'm backing up my C drive as I type though so when that finishes I'll be doing a system repair hopefully this will fix most of my problems.

Oh and how do I know if I need a new thermal paste?

It's actually quite hard to tell sometimes, but if you take the heatsink off the CPU, check the grey/silver/white paste, and just make sure that theres decent cover, maybe an amound the size of a pea spread out over the processor middle. if it's clumpy, flaky, dry, probably a bit like dry toothpaste, then replace it. Clean off the old paste as best you can using a little piece of cardboard. Then put a drop about the size of a pea on the processor and spread it out a little - it will spread out itself and it will do a better job of spreading out than you can, it will melt a little and spread inbetween the heatsink and cpu. If you spread it out too much yourself, it might cause air bubbles which you don't want.

Simms are the long components:


If just one of them is dying, it will cause horrible crashes, lockups, blue screens, resets... memory can be a right pain as well, because a lot of problems only occur when the memory chips heat up - broken solder etc. If you are needing to buy new memory, try and get some with heatsinks, or maybe buy heatsinks seperately for your working memory - chances are that if it is a memory problem, it will just be 1 simm.

Really know way of telling, just age of computer and yours isn't to old so I doubt you need it.

Ok thanks for the responses! I had 2x512mb Ram sticks and the computer was slow so I bought 2x1gb sticks and installed it a few weeks back now and didn't see much of an improvement. So I might try removing the 2 old sticks and see if it helps. Thanks!

Hold the phone...

Are you using all 4 simms at the same time? - that's a real bad idea, you should always have matching simms, so just the 1gb simms, or just the old 512mb simms. If you mix and match, the memory can't synchronize very well and it can cause real issues, as bad as having a broken simm.

Pentium 4 is 32bit only, you can have 2 CPUs on the same motherboard, servers often have a dual CPU slots. If you have a raid 1 mirror it sounds like a server. Servers sometimes use more expensive memory that has parity error checking.

Clean the dust out of the heatsinks. If you have removed them then you need new thermal paste.

Make sure the 3D Card has enough power. Most of them need an extra power cable. Make sure you PSU has enough watts to power everything. The first thing that tends to go in an old PC is the power supply.

Make sure your fans blow the right way if you have moved them. Air should suck in from the lower front and blow out the top back usually to provide a flow of air over all the components.

You can use speedfan to monitor your tempratures and fan speeds http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php