Hey guys, I'm having this problem with overheating and im really stuck with what to do. I recently built a new pc from parts and Im experiencing an issue. My specs for my computer are:

- Mach Speed Venom MSA2-6100V NVIDIA Socket AM2 MicroATX Motherboard and an AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 2.80GHz Socket AM2 OEM Processor
- 2GB kit (1GBx2), Ballistix 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-6400 memory module
- XFX GeForce 8600 GTS / 256MB DDR3 / SLI Ready / PCI Express / Dual
DVI / HDTV / Video Card
- Ultra / X-Finity / 600-Watt / ATX / Dual 80mm Fan / SATA-Ready / SLI Ready / Black / Power Supply
- Windows Home edition service pack 2

along with 2 320gb Seagate Sata Hard drives, 2 optical drives, 2 120mm fans, 1 80mm fan with LED, and a heatsink.

The computer boots fine but when I start to do anything complex, such as running a program, it heats up and the consequencely shuts down. I downloaded speedfan and I can see that the temperature just starts to dramatically rise when i start running things. If I take out the graphic card and just run the pc with the graphic card on the motherboard, and stays in normal range(35 - 50 degrees celcius). I tried leaving it on overnight, but awoke to see that it too had shut off during the night. I used a power supply calculator calculator and, after entering my specs, see that it should only draw 339 watts, which should be easy for my 600 watt power supply. My thoughts are that maybe I installed the heatsink improperly, so tonight I am going to try take off the compound on there and reapply, but if that doesnt work, does anybody have any other ideas on what could be causing this overheating?

Heya and welcome to PCHF,

When you put the CPU cooler on, make sure you put only a thin coating of thermal paste (I recomend using ArticSilver), should only be like 1 to 2mm thick and make sure the Fan is tightly screwed on
Also make sure your video card's fan is spinning properly

the thermal paste seems good and the heatsink seems locked in and the videcard fan is working. Maybe the fan is not strong enough to cool the processor? it fits in well so i dont think its the wrong type, but its recommend for "most" amd processors, maybe mine is just not one of them?

what heatsink would we be talking about here?