computer overheating?

[no-sweat]

sometimes, like once a month, during the middle of the night, my comptuter will restart, but it wont restart all the way. it gets stuck on "Detecting IDE devices.." and just stays there. i have to turn it off and turn it back on for it to work. if i just hit the restart button it will stop at that same place... any ideas? :\

i think it may be over heating.. lemme know if this is the case, i'll probably have a follow-up question about fans.

[Wilbur]

I've had CPUs overheat before but I don't recall them causing a reboot when that happened - they just locked up. It's a possibility though. If you have (any) reason to suspect that is the cause then you should definitely look into getting a better CPU fan or a case fan if it could be caused by lack of air. Until I got a good fan on mine there were certain websites I couldn't browse to with IE or it would overheat my CPU (the sites used Java extensively which caused the CPU to run at 100% when using IE and eventually overheat).

[wayneluu]

I would not say it is a CPU overheating problem.
Somehow, I feel that it is a problem between your motherboard and hard drive. Could be the motherboard or the hard drive.
For some reasons, your computer cannot correctly detect your hard drive either on booting or after booting, which will naturally cause the problem you mentioned.
I would like to suggest you to open the case, unplugging the hard drive (including the power cord and cable), and plugging them again repeatedly for a couple of time before you reboot.
Try to detect the hard drive in the BIOS, seeing if the computer can accurately find your hard drive.
If everything goes fine then maybe it is the connection problem instead of CPU overheating problem.

Good luck.

[slauhter]

Hi,

With regards to the overheating issue, just check the cpu temp in the bios after it does this. If it is under 70C it should not be the cause.
Although you should keep your cpu @ 50C or below.
Change your heatsink if it is higher.

The restarting is most likely caused by your M/b, try doing a Bios update may help it.
As per the freezing on Post, this is vary rarely caused by the HDD, especially if you re-boot and it works.
Is usually also M/b,Bios related.

If you start getting regualr freezes on Post then the most common cause is a Cpu or HDD.

See how you get on.