Been having some quite considerable probs with my system recently. Firstly, the specs AMD Athlon XP 2600+ 1Gb unbranded RAM 1x 80Gb HD (for os and apps) 1x 40Gb HD (for data) Radeon pro 2800 GFX (I think) Wireless LAN Basically, my system had been hanging periodically which I think is an over heating issue. Idle temp was 60*C going up to +70*C after a while. So I obtained a new heatsink and fan from a student of mine to try out. Installed it, thermal paste and all and the temp was 120*C! I figure it's not seated on the CPU properly so I re-install it but with no change. Also, I put in an extra case fan which runs off the larger ps cables (the ones that power the HD's) rather than directly from a mobo header. This seems to overload the mobo somehow and the PC would shutdown soon after being switched on. So I change the supply to 2nd fan to come from a different lead and everything seems fine.. Except I was getting more crashes and blue screen of death whenever I ran an AVG scan, making me think there's something seriously amiss. Maybe a virus. I'd been meaning to do a format/reinstall for a while so I backup my stuff onto second HD and boot off my Win XP CD. Loader does the normal stuff but hangs on the "starting windows" screen after loading in the drivers it needs to install. Now I can't get into windows either. Safe mode just loads in the drivers and stops and a "last known setttings.." or "start as normal" results in a BSOD. So I nip round a friends house and make an MS-DOS start-up disk. Won't boot off that either. Next thing I do is run memtest to see if it's a RAM issue. Straight away, my RAM is riddles with errors. Damn. I bought this RAM a few months ago and ran memtest overnight on it and it gave the all-clear. Also, RAM was labelled and sold to me as 512Mb but is actually a 1Gb stick, proboably not related but weird nonetheless. So I'm hoping its just my RAM, but install and older stick I know is fine (memtest all clear) and still the same probs. I'm think maybe the 120*C CPU temp and the mobo shutting down on installation of a new fan has somehow fried something? My RAM seems wrecked somehow so maybe the CPU and mobo is too?

The amount of thermal paste you use is between 1/2 to 1 times the size of a grain of rice.Sometimes it takes a few attempts to get the correct amount applied.Clean your cpu and heatsink properly and start over.The sudden surge from 70c to 120c would lead you to believe either this is the problem or the heatsink isn't seated properly.

I think I've been putting too much paste on! The 120c thing isnt an issue anymore cos I've reverted back to the original heatsink and fan, but 70C seems too much. I'll give it another clean and put less on. Just discovered my HD has a load of bad sectors too. The plot thickens..

Check your computing.net private messages or e-mail.

Depending on room temp & case cooling, your CPU should idle somewhere between 35-45C. Make sure you don't install the heatsink backwards...it is made to be installed one way only. The paste should be applied to the core only & spread as thinly & evenly as possible. Arctic Silver's instructions are excellent: http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

as far as bad sectors, if the HDD is for some reason in FAT32 run MS Scandisk, which can usaully recover bad sectors if it is in NTFS, try these: http://www.bodden.de/misc/ntfsrecovery/body_bad_sector_recovery_on_ntfs.php or this: http://www.unistal.com/disk_repair.html older technology is the s---; keep it running

If either heatsink you use has a thermal pad on it, as in a thin layer of goop in a uniform layer, remove it if you are going to use thermal paste, especially if it was already indented from previous use. AMD did some tests a while back, and using both an intact thermal pad and thermal paste does not work as well as either one alone. The XP cpu should have 4 raised areas or pads near the corners of the cpu package - if any of those is missing, your heatsink will not seat properly on the center of the package and the cpu will probably get hotter than it should.