[gentoo-user] Hardware issues, probably overheating, help?

[Mrugesh Karnik <mrugeshkarnik@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I've been having issues with the computer shutting down automatically. Makes 
me wonder if it's an over heating problem. The system (AMD Sempron 2500+, MSI 
K8M800 mobo, two Seagate HDDs, an LG DVD Burner and a GB of RAM) has 
developed a habit of shutting down or restarting randomly, no matter what OS 
I'm using.

A few days ago, the system shut itself down. I pressed the start switch but it 
would not respond, instead the power LED just kept blinking. I thought it to 
be an overheating issue and let it cool off for a bit. It worked fine for a 
few days and then this phenomenon just kept repeating itself and the 
frequency increased. There were a few lockups in between too. This would 
happen when running and update world while running Azureus in KDE or even 
when I was doing something as trivial as just chatting.

One day, the system refused to start. I pressed the start switch after a few 
minutes of such a shutdown and all that happened was I could see the power, 
HDD LEDs and the DVD burner's LED all glowing, but the monitor wouldn't 
start. The CPU fan would be working. I let the thing sleep for a few hours.

Later, I though I'd just run memtest to check if the RAM modules aren't 
causing any trouble. The pc actually started this time, but as soon as the 
memtest86+ screen came up, the thing shut itself down once again.

Next day, I had the system lock up twice while editing the BIOS settings. This 
time I decided to dig out the processor and take the board and the processor 
to the dealer for checkup. Turns out that the processor had got stuck to the 
heat sink. After separating and reinstalling the two, the system worked fine 
for a few days.

Now, again, a couple of days ago, I had the shut down. This time I decided to 
keep the room as cool as possible and have been running the computer with the 
lid open. But then again, just a few minutes ago, I had the shutdown while 
compiling K3B while running KDE and Azureus. Since then I've put up ksensors 
to check the temperature constantly. It's showing a pretty neat 35C right 
now, running Azureus, Kmail and Kopete.

Anyway, the point of this loooooooooooong emails is that I haven't exactly pin 
pointed the problem. If anyone thinks this is something other than over 
heating, please reply.

Thank you,
Mrugesh
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