Hi, my friend helped me build my first PC about a year ago and ever since then I've had problems. It over heats BADLY, allowing me to run it as long as I want but it will not let me restart or reboot if the core temp was over 130 degress F. The motherboard is from Soyo, I don't know much about it other then he sold it to me and it works with an AMD Athlon XP. Either way, I didn't have a major problem with it. Over the year it's encountered more problems. If I try to move any video files on my second harddrive, the window freezes and doesn't respond. I then have to ctrl+alt+delete to shut it down (samething happens when I move files around on my desktop). I play alot of PC games and all my games ran perfectly (on an ATI Radeon 9200, 128mb) at first then soon my PC would freeze in the middle of it and I'd have to restart (after waiting 30minutes for it to cool down). a few monthes ago I bought a PCI fan to help with the problem (to add to the 2 case fans), but it didn't even make a dent. The lock ups have been happening more often now while playing my games and they only eased up after leaving the case slightly openned and having an ouside fan blowing on it. I just bought a SAPPHIRE Radeon 9800pro 128mb 256-bit to replace my old card. When I turned on my PC after putting in the new card, it froze during the ATI Control Panel Install. It took 2 more tries to get it to finish then freeze again. With the 9800 in, any program I used outside of Internet Explorer caused my computer to freeze. Thinking it was just the card overheating, I placed my old card back in. Now the problem still exists except now it only does it when I start up any game (even games that I encountered very few problems in in the past).

On a side note:

• My mic doesn't seem to work properly. At first I would get a staticy sound on play back, and now the mic bearly picks up my voice. I have to yell for my voice to even be slightly heard. This has happened with every mic I've used so far.
• My CD-Rom drive doesn't read disks unless I right click the icon in my computer while the drives tries to read the disk.

Can anyone PLEASE help? This computer is driving me insane

I'm a novice when it comes to computers for the most part, however, I learn fast :smiley:

Thank you for your time.

Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2
2.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
1024 MB Installed Memory (2x 512mb)
Board: soyocomputer KT400-8235
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 09/02/2003

Hi there,
Overheating is a major issue with computers. If you could get ahold of your friend, ask him if he put some CPU thermo gel (or thermal paste, something like that) between the CPU and the heatsink with the fan. Then check if all your fans are clean of dirt, do that for every single fan in your computer, take a soft bristle brush or one of those air cans and take your computer outside and give it a good clean.
See if you can add any more case fans, I've got 5 in my case. Before you do that, open up your side panel and put a fan poiting into it (a big fan, as in a table top fan or something) and make it blow on "High" into your case and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn't then I doubt it's because you're not getting enough airflow into the case.
Have you tried doing a repair for the OS?

Let me know if any of that helps

Hello and welcome to PCHF Oyako
Did your friend overclock the CPU?

This could be causing the system to overheat so much, you need to check that the Core vol and bus freq are set correctly for you CPU.

What sound card are you using, is it an onboard, make/model?
If you wiggle the mic jack up and down where it connects to the sound card, does the volume get any better or worse?

Have you tried using a CD lens cleaner on the drive to make sure it isn't dirty?
Also how many drives do you have connected to your system, might be worth trying to put this CD-ROM drive on a seperate IDE cable in the meantime to test to see if it helps.

@Darkloard7854: When we were first putting it together, it wouldn't start up untill he added more thermal paste on which allowed it to turn on. He's moved away so the only thing I can do with him is talk to him about it over the phone. He thinks I should just replace the mother board. I've cleaned all the fans inside and I have a table fan blowing on it on high and it isn't helping (after trying to install the 9800), I have to go get another fan to see if it'll work, also, I have not tried a doing a repair on my OS... how does one do that :P

@Zimbo: My friend went over the core vol and bus freq I believe. Don't know how well of a job he did.

The sound card is onboard and when I wiggle the jack it makes my left speaker cut out.

I've tried cleaning the CD-Rom drive and it works better now Thanks!

open your computer up and make sure your sound card is inserted all the way into the PCI slot

Hmmm, because it causes the speaker to cut out it can be one of two things.
Either the cable/jack is faulty or your actual soundcard is faulty which could explain the whole microphone thing.

Try put in a PCI soundcard and test to see whether it works better.

There is definately something strange with the motherboard, the processor should never get that hot, especially if the fans are working.
Might be worth trying another motherboard + CPU