Overheating issues

Alright everyone...
My PC keeps shutting down right after I finish gaming. My Radeon 6670HD (which uses a passive heatsink) has a built-in sensor showing temps staying under 75°C. I also went into my BIOS and set a thermal alarm to trigger if any system component hits 90°C, but that hasn't tripped yet. I’m honestly stumped. I have HWMonitor installed to track my CPU temps, and my Core i7 (running at 2.1 GHz) isn't crossing the 70°C mark either. As soon as I hear that alarm go off, I immediately check both temperatures, and they're sitting right around 70°C. I just don't know what else could be causing this or what else I should be looking at. I actually specifically picked up this 6670HD because my old setup used integrated graphics and would overheat and shut down constantly. Could this be an issue with the power supply overheating, or maybe the Northbridge? Either way, it only happens when I'm playing games...

So, what processor are you actually running? I’m rocking a Core i7 e6420 myself—max temp hits about 61.4°C. Even with a massive 40% overclock during Prime95, it doesn't push past 55°C... If I had to guess, your CPU is probably what's triggering those shutdowns. Especially now with the summer heat waves hitting, you really ought to check your airflow... clean out the dust, maybe slap some fresh thermal paste on there if you can...
I don't buy the GPU or motherboard being the culprit—70°C is nothing for a card like that.

It’s honestly not surprising that you're seeing those temperature spikes while gaming—especially when you're running something demanding. That kind of heat is pretty standard, but if I were in your shoes, I'd probably head over to a local PC repair shop. Or, if you happen to have an air compressor lying around at home, you could try blowing out the case yourself? After that, just clean off the old thermal paste on the processor and apply some fresh stuff, and you should be good to go. Most of the time, these high temps come down to simple dust buildup or just the fact that it's summer and the apartment is running warmer than usual.

Larry Ortiz5 said:It’s honestly not surprising that you're seeing those temperature spikes while gaming—especially when you're running something demanding. That kind of heat is pretty standard, but if I were in your shoes, I'd probably head over to a local PC repair shop. Or, if you happen to have an air compressor lying around at home, you could try blowing out the case yourself? After that, just clean off the old thermal paste on the processor and apply some fresh stuff, and you should be good to go. Most of the time, these high temps come down to simple dust buildup or just the fact that it's summer and the apartment is running warmer than usual.

Yeah, you're right—everything was running perfectly fine until this damn heatwave hit... I actually have some high-quality thermal paste on hand, so I'll get that applied shortly. I don't think the GPU is the culprit here. The real issue is my case airflow; I don't really have many fans installed. It's basically just the power supply fan and the stock cooler on the processor. I'm going to give it a thorough cleaning, re-paste the CPU, and maybe look into picking up a large aftermarket fan to help things along...

Also, don't forget to blow it all out with some compressed air—if you don't have a compressor handy, you can always grab a can from the local Home Depot for about $10 per bottle.

Just a quick tip while you're blowing out the computer—try to hold the fans steady so they don't spin freely. If you let them spin too fast from the air pressure, they might start making a buzzing sound after a little while. 😉
Plus, honestly, that canned compressed air isn't worth a damn anyway. 🙂

Fair enough—it’s definitely better than using a vacuum.

Personally, when I undertake a deep cleaning of my PC, I tend to go quite thoroughly by removing the heatsinks from both the CPU and the GPU. I usually take the fans out and wash them under running water, making sure to dry them completely with a hairdryer before reapplying thermal paste and reassembling everything. If there’s any lingering dust inside the chassis, I just blow it out. This method has been my standard routine for about seven years now, and I haven't run into any issues whatsoever. I suppose, if you decide to clean your rig, it might be wise to run Prime95 afterward to stress test the processor and monitor the temperatures closely. You could likely do something similar for the graphics card using FurMark, though you should probably keep in mind that temperatures might spike a bit higher with that than they would during actual gaming sessions.