Stop Errors and heat?

Hi

I am having problems with heat maybe. I am getting random reboots and stop errors and the error reporting sytem points to a hardware problem.
I replaced my motherboard earlier this year because my previous one ended up with burned capacitors right next to the processor and heat sink. The errors I got at that time were similar to those I am now getting although I cannot see any damage to the capacitors .... yet. When it happened previously my computer was working really hard and long doing 3D rendering. This time however it is doing nothing other than messing about on the internet.

The computer has a great big exhaust pipe with a fan inside mounted directly to the back of the heatsink ... this fan and assembly are clean and so is the power supply fan ... both fans seem to be running normally.

Is there a heat monitoring program I can download to monitor the situation? the only one I have is the one in BIOS and by the time I get there the temp is probably less anyway.

Pentium 4 - 3.02mhz - 512ram - gigabyte replacement motherboard - ATI radeon 9200SE.

Any advice?

Virtual Patient

Try this one:

PC Wizard

Random stop errors can often be a sign of faulty RAM. You can test the memory with either (or preferably both) of thes utilities:

Memtest86

Windows Memory Diagnostic

thanks for your reply SuperSparks ... I will download and run those tests today :)

Virtual Patient

ok ... PC Wizard readings on temperature;

CPU Core 1.44V
+5V Voltage 5.21V
+12V Voltage 12.13V
Processor Fan 2857 rpm
Processor Temperature 58 C
Mainboard Temperature 35 C
Power/Aux Temperature 1C
Hard Disk Temperature 30 C

Nothing looks strange to me ... but I really don't know what temperature is normal.

MemTest - this was the one that scared me .... after the first run a red entry appeared which seemed to be telling me something failed .. but within a few seconds the test bar extended and red and said unexpected interupt and halting :(

I have used memtest before and never seen this result...am I right in assuming I now need to remove my ram one at a time and test each individually (two sticks 256 each) to find which is bad? and that my problem is soley ram related?

Virtual Patient

"Processor Temperature 58 C"

That is is a little high.

Have you cleaned all the dust ant stuff out of the computer lately, to include the fans blades?

I have cleaned all the fans and the heatsink, the power supply fan is a little 'grubby' but is running free ( I didn't take the power supply to pieces to clean the fan)... the processor fan is in a pristine state of cleanliness.

My suspicion is the heatsink paste itself .... I am not completely confident that this was reapplied to a good standard when the motherboard was replaced last year. Is it ok for amateurs to reapply the paste?

I will be testing out the ram sticks today too, I hope to let you know how that goes later.

Virtual Patient

right then ... memtest on individual sticks completed

:( I have one real bad stick there ... so I suppose it's off to the shops for me.

I am still interested in temperatures for this machine ... I do not like the exhaust system with the processor fan set a few inches back from the heatsink ... and I'm still concerned about the paste .... so if anybody has any suggestions for those things I would be grateful to see them.

p.s. processor temp seems to fluctuate between 53C and 60C during simple internet tasks.

Thank you for your help ... as always :)

Virtual Patient

It looks like you have two problems there, though the CPU temp was probably not causing any noticeable problems. The errors that you were noticing were almost certainly due to the bad RAM. But that CPU temp is too high for a processor that isn't doing much, so you definitely want to have that heatsink off and change the paste. You'll probably find these useful:

Arctic Silver Instructions

Thank you for the link SuperSparks ... I have replaced my bad ram stick and will get some paste on my next visit to the shops. :)

Virtual Patient