On May 13, 9:06*am, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
This is something that seems to have defeated the best minds in the UK so
I thought I'd try here...;-)

I have a home assembled PC - about 18 months old - using an Asus A8N5X MB
and an Athlon 64 3000+ CPU. It's mainly used for semi-pro AV work.

*After a year or so of faultless service, it started shutting down at
random. Would usually boot up again ok and carry on. After a few occasions
I took to having PCProbe loaded and noticed the CPU temp would shoot up
just before it shut down. So naturally removed the heatsink/fan, cleaned
and replaced with new thermal transfer compound.

*All was well for a month or so, then the fault started happening earlier
and earlier - sometimes before XP had loaded. The bios power management
page again showed the CPU overheating - going from ambient to overheat in
around a minute. But the heatsink was cool to the touch. ;-)

I was intending to use the shotgun approach and simply replace the MB -
and possibly CPU - but it seems this design of MB is now obsolete so I'd
have to change lots of other things too.

*I've not been able to find any description of how the CPU temp sensing
works let alone any clues on fixing what must be an intermittent fault -
as I've stripped and re-assembled the entire computer, cleaned all
connectors etc, and it's fine again once more. But for how long?...

Any informed guesses?

--

* * Dave Plowman * * * * * * * * London SW
* * * * * * * * * To e-mail, change noise into sound.

I inherited a Dell a few years back discarded by the repairperson as
unfixable, which turned out to have as its only fault a CPU fan which
would freeze up randomly. cost $10 for a new one from Radio Shack, and
that was with a new heatsink included.