some beeping and overheating

Lately, mostly today but a bit yesterday, I've been having some problems wtih my computer.

When I play a game (specifically Oblivion), my computer starts making a beep every 3 seconds or so. If I look at the ground for a while, it usually goes away. I got SpeedFan, my temperature is about 42C. When I play Oblivion it takes a few minutes until the temperature reaches 50C (the game feels fine , my settings arnt too high for my computer).

So what could be causing it? Im pretty sure 50C isnt too good for a computer to be running at.

I blew my computer out (canned air), it helped a few degrees, but not a whole lot.

Right now, idling, with a few background programs and Firefox open, the temperature is at 42C.

The weather where I live is 23C. It was a lot hotter yesterday when it began beeping.

All case fans are running (2 on front, 1 on top, 1 on side, 1 on back). SpeedFan reports Fan1 and Fan3 RPM but not Fan2.

it could be the GPU thats overheating though..

Is there anyway I can narrow it down to whats causing the problem?

When an ATI graphics card "Crashes", if you have that crash recoverry software thing ATI do, doesnt that beep to tell you its recovered?

FWIW, I, too, have heard that the rule of thumb is to try to keep the CPU's routine temperature below 50C for maximum life. But, we had an Athlon PC at work that routinely ran at 50-52C for several years (until replaced by an upgrade). In the BIOS of my home PC (specs below), the lowest possible warning temp is 50C and the lowest shutdown is 60C. It tends to idle in the high 30s/low 40s, but sometimes when doing heavy-duty 3D stuff for extended periods, it'd sometimes trigger the 50C warning alarm, so I've raised it to 53.

These are pretty conservative figures. One web resource puts the maximum temperatures at somewhere around 65C to 90C depending on the CPU: http://www.heatsink-guide.com/maxtemp.shtml . Your CPU is similar to mine, Regular K, with a max temp of 85C, so 50-60C should pose no trouble.

Then whats with those annoying beeps happening every second?

My motherboard is ASUS A8N-SU Deluxe, its already been fried once due to overheating. Im gonna check its manual.

You might check your BIOS CPU temp warning/shutdown settings and see if the warning is at 50.


Err - or maybe that has something to do with it?

That was due to a dead fan.

EDIT: I just checked, all my fans are running.

Are you overclocking? What's the dust situation on heatsinks (in between the fins)? Are they clogged?

When it starts bleeping again, carefully pull the cover off, and aim a large desk fan on high speed at the cpu/gpu. If the bleeping stops within a few minutes then you know what your problem is.

It may very well be your GPU (not CPU) that's overheating.

Just out of curiosity: If you have any additional expansion cards, are they seated right next to your video adapter, or do you have one or two empty slots in between?

If at all possibly, you should keep some empty space next to your video card for maximum air circulation (and thereby cooling)

Are you absolutly sure its not the ATI card letting you know that its cut the pipeline short because you've told it to sync at a quicker rate than it needs to draw the scene?

Or (and this is stretching the term beep), that its not the Gpu fan making a "Clicking" noise as it start and stops

I don't think I have vsync enabled.

I just woke up, my computers temperature is 35C, while yesterday it was 42C-44C while idle. I suppose it was just too hot from being overworked/hot outside?

Ambient temperature can certainly have a significant effect.

42-44c? Thats a safe temporature, you wont see any bad effects in a PC really, might get crashing/locking in the higher 50s on weaker CPUs. my old celeron would overheat at 60c.

Check the bios as mentioned above for the 50c warning, if thats not it, check the GFX card, it's more likely to be that :)

My CPU is pretty much always running at 56-57C (Athlon 2800+) with stock heatsink, not overclocked... Stable as a rock.

Another PC fried by Oblivion?

After playing this game for a few days without a problem my PC then started to crash after 15 minutes of play.

After a crash I quickly entered the BIOS and saw that my CPU temperature was 95 degrees O_o.

Taking the side off of the case sorted the overheating, I think it was a combination of everything getting so hot inside the case that caused the CPU to overheat.

There are some people on the Oblivion forums who have had their graphics card destroyed by overheating while playing this game.

See if your PC still crashes with the case open, It is only Oblivion that makes my PC overheat, F.E.A.R./Doom3/FarCry etc. are no problem.