Northwood 478 - Overheating??

[Jungle_Tribe]

My housemate has been having problems with his computer freezing. Well, thats the best we can discribe it.

When playing games, eg. Warcraft and Farcry, the visual completely corrupts (i'll see if i can get a photo) but often sound will continue on. Theres nothing you can do, and very shortly afterwards everything freezes and you're forced to reboot.

To the best of my knowledge:-

(Updated stats)
478 Northwood 2.66ghz
Hyper48 CoolerMaster
Leadtek NVidia Graphics card 6800 gt (- requiring approx 350w apperently)
2gb ram
550w power supply
3 cd drives
a silly amount of fans

He's recently installed FreshDevices to prob and find out temps etc. and by God i hope it's wrong it's reported temps of 75 degrees on the MB, and 127 on the cpu. wtf? Does anyone know if this software is reliable? cos thats just madness.

We're removing the cpu cooler in the morning checking paste etc. etc. in an attempt to get the temp down.

Atm i'm just trying to find out how reliable the software is as i realise there's little anyone can suggest with so little information.

Hopefully updating soon!!

UPDATE:-

An image of the screen once it freezes... apologies for the size!!

 

[WJA96]

It could be a multitude of things. The best check on the CPU temp is in the BIOS.

If possible - do a complete reformat and re-install of windows. You'll probably see a small performance increment from that as well.

 

[Matteysan]

He's recently installed FreshDevices to prob and find out temps etc. and by God i hope it's wrong it's reported temps of 75 degrees on the MB, and 127 on the cpu. wtf? Does anyone know if this software is reliable? cos thats just madness.

I find Everest gives out reliable readings compared to most programs or Speedfan, i hope too that those temps are wrong

 

[GAMEfreak]

you could always throw a bit of water on the cpu, and if it evaporates you know its over 100 degrees lol.

 

[poley]

Fahrenheit....

127F = 53C
75F = 22C

Depending on what clockspeed the processor is its temp may well be showing the correct reading.

As for the motherboard, that seems a little low but not altogether out of the realms of possibility.

I'd highly doubt that the motherboard was reading in degrees C, if it is you have a serious problem on your hands.

Also I doubt that you graphics card is taking 350W, 100W possibly max. Go download CPU-Z and post a screenshot.

It might be worth while running SuperPI on a loop for while to see how the computer responds, ie if it crashes your looking at a processor problem.

Then move onto a loop of 3Dmark and see how that holds up, if that crashes try and see where and you'll most likely (but not certain) be looking at a graphics card problem.

Also try and keep an eye on the temps and see how they vary.

 

[Jungle_Tribe]

Thanks Poley, some useful info there

the program didn't state what it was using to measure in, but fahrenheit makes a bit more sense.

we've downloaded the programs suggested, we're gonna start putting it through it's paces.

just as an update though, reformatted this morning, and we've still got the crashing. i think that eleminates the software possibilities?

UPDATE

Ok, we've actually tracked it down to a graphics card problem... so really, the name of the thread is completely wrong, and it's in the wrong place...