I have recently been having some issues with my PC, I went away for 3 weeks and when I got back I was just getting BSODs constantly. I tried to do a system restore and during that I got a BSOD which screwed my PC over so I reformatted with XP 64. After I finished this I was still getting BSODs so I took a a stick of RAM out and it was stabler although I did get the odd BSOD although no where near as often. so I bought some new RAM. This didn't fix the problem. I noticed that it would crash during games, although there was no specific crash. Sometimes I would get a BSOD but it wouldn't be the same one twice, sometimes the computer would just restart almost like it was struggling for power and sometimes my applications would crash. I replaced the graphics card from a 8800GTS and bought a GTX275. This didn't fix the problem either. I have now reformatted and installed Windows 7. This hasn't fixed the issue either. The problem has changed though recently, before I could get into Windows no problem but it would either crash the games I was playing or BSOD. However I was able to play Borderlands for most of Saturday and the PC was fine but the CPU was running hot, holding at 69c sometimes going over to 70-71c which is bad but I suspected the HS being stock and probably needed cleaning. However I tried to play TF2 and the computer crashed at about 68c and since then it just freezes all the time. It can freeze at anypoint at all which is worrying, I have had it freeze during the Mobo logo, in the bios settings, during the windows load with the logo and it will freeze just after I manage to log on. The temperature for the CPU isn't getting anywhere near hot enough during this time though although I have ordered a new heatsink. I have ordered a new motherboard as well but I am just not sure where the fault lies and once I have the new mobo installed I will only have the PSU and hard drives which are from the machine that was working. Any tips for help diagnosing this problem would be gratefully received. PSU: 700w Zalman Ram: 8gb (4x2gb) OCZ Titanium 6400 CPU: Q6600 Mobo: Striker Extreme (New one will be ASUS P5N-D) Graphics: GTX275 HDD: 1x120gb IDE, 1x250gb sata

Your troubleshooting skills suck. Since you're having the same problem with several different operating systems, the problem is most likely hardware related & the fact that it freezes up in the BIOS confirms it. But randomly replacing hardware is NOT an acceptable troubleshooting technique. If you knew the CPU was running at 70C+, why would you try anything other than pulling the HSF, cleaning it, then reinstalling it with a fresh dab of paste? That should have been the 1st thing you looked into, but it doesn't sound like you've even tried that yet?

Normally I would pull the HSF off and reapply it but I haven't got any thermal paste so I could take it off but not reapply it. Seeing as it is a stock HSF I thought I would replace it at the same time. I didn't knowI had a CPU heat problem until after I replaced the RAM and GPU. The RAM was faulty anyway. I know my troubleshooting skills are sucking in this case but the symptoms have been so random I just haven't been able to nail down the actual cause. I don't like to just throw money at a problem to fix it but I have updated all software and drivers and nothing so far has fixed the issue. Considering my CPU isn't breaking 55c while booting oridle in windows I was looking for other things that could cause the problems I am having.