My computer keeps shutting down when I play games, is my CPU overheating?

My CPU seems to be overheating - should I fix it, or take it as a sign to upgrade?

Question by Israel from Philippines | Answered by in CPUs, Chipsets & SoCs on
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My 4 1/2 year old core 2 quad system recently shuts down by itself whenever i play games especially Far Cry 3, Black ops 2 and Doom 3 BFG... then the screen says processor thermal trip warning when i reboot... is this a warning sign that i should upgrade now to a core I-7 system? i will list down my specs in order to know what part is causing the problem... thanks in advance...

specs...

  • core 2 Quad Q6600
  • palit GTX 560ti 2GB
  • intel P45 mobo
  • 650W PSU
  • 150GB raptor
  • 500GB scorpio blue
  • antec 900 case
  • kingston 8GB DDR 3 1333Mhz

Hi Israel,

From what you've explained there - your system is shutting down automatically when you're playing games, as well as showing a message that your processor is overheating.

My computer keeps shutting down when I play games, is my CPU overheating? | TweakTown.com

You could take this as two sides - a sign to upgrade, which is something you could do to get around these issues. Secondly, your CPU could be overheating, and all you'd need to do is maybe open the case up and see if the CPU cooler (the heatsink and fan) is dirty, or dusty. You could take the cooler off of the CPU and motherboard itself, clean the CPU and HSF up and reapply some thermal paste.

This is most likely the issue - and if you didn't want to spend any money, apart from the cost of thermal paste - this should solve your problems.

Of course, you could look at this as a sign to upgrade, and grab yourself a new Core i7 CPU, motherboard and RAM. The GPU, PSU and HDDs are all good, so it would be a cheapish upgrade.

Last updated: Nov 3, 2020 at 07:10 pm CST

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