Rebooting/Crashing Problem

[peeone]

My Asus a7n8x-x/ xp2600 / 64 MB Nvidia Graphics 256 mb ddr2700 memory / Windows XP system will randomly reboot itself, normaly when the processor is heavily loaded, ie memory / graphic intensive games. have tried the following solutions so far
1. up graded graphics card from 32 to 64, same problem
2. run system with minimum configuration, same problem,
3. have purchased internal extraction fan, still does it.
4. have installed coolmaster heatsink and new fan rated for the system problem still occurs.
5. have removed external casing and placed 20 inch houshold fan blowing down onto CPU area, reboot interval increases

i have noticed by using Asus PC probe that problem could be related to temp of CPU, but this still causes reboot at temp as low as 32 degrees C. which is well within temp limits for this setup.

If any one could give me some advise (other than throwing it out the window) i will look forward to your comments.

[bOdY_SNaTCHeR]

Put some thermal grease between the cpu and heatsink see if that helps if you havent already.

[peeone]

thanks bOdY_SNaTCHeR for that idea, and hopefully this will resolve this problem?????

[Flyfsh]

Possibly, check the bios & see what temp the shutdown is set at.

[peeone]

Cheers Flyfsh for that , i did try thermel grease but problem still exists, so will investigate Bios setup, is there a way of altering Bios temp settings ???
cheers
peeone

[jammin]

I would check your motherboard mannfacturers site to see if you can alter the shutdown temp. I have found that some boards will let you alter it through bios and some have a locked value (usually quite high, say 75c or above even). Check your bios settings and see if its set too low (if you can). If this isn't the problem then it may be your ram. If your motherboard is configured for top performance, the ram settings may be too aggressive for the ram you have (is it generic or branded?)

[Flyfsh]

I don't mean to insult you. Nobody has mentioned the tape on the back of the new heat sink. Did you remove the tape before instaling the heatsink on your processor.

[rgrah]

Try changing the power supply to a higher watt focusing on the +5 and +12 volt ratings for hard drive and cpu power. This was a problem i had aswell with different hardware.

[peeone]

Thanks for all your suggestions, have tried altering temp setting in Bios and ASUS probe tools but still same, have also swapped out to larger wattage psu= no change, one thing i did change was to reduce the memory config in bios from 166 to 133, cant see why this would affect it but it has, no more crashes so far.