Overheating and Shutting Down

BTW, the machine is about a year old and I've never had this problem until recently.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert at anything :)

From what your screen shots indicate, temperatures appear OK. It's not unusual for GPU temps under load to reach 90 or slightly higher (of course, this will vary by manufacturer and specific GPU model.) Idle temps can be in the 40s -60s, again varying by manufacturer.

Core temps also seem good. Just for comparison you could look at the thermal specs for a Core 2 Duo.

Intel Core 2 Duo (Merom) - ThinkWiki

As far as the PID, I have to admit a bit of confusion. By my understanding the PID identifies the order in which processes are started up via the Windows kernel. The higher the number the later (after initial boot) the process. If the PID was 200 it would have been the 200th process to start up. 960 would indicate a later start.

Overview of Performance Monitoring

So if you're still have the original shut down problem after 20 mintues or so, it may not be all heat related but heat could be playing a part.

I've downloaded memtest86 and thinking about running that to see if there is a memory leak. Is that advisable and will it tell me what to do to fix it? I'm struggling here.

It hasn't shut down when I keep the temps low with the external fan, but it has shut down today when I turned the fan off. I've never seen svchost use this much memory until recently.

I had checked on the temperature specs and mine didn't seem to be so high they would cause a shutdown, but without the fan it's happening.

Thanks for the help.

Memtest won't hurt but you might consider running it overnight. If any problems are detected it should let you know what they are. I have ten individual listings for svchost and one of them consistently runs in the 110,000 - 130,000 range. I don't believe yours is anything to worry about. But it does seem obvious there's an overheating problem. Maybe the thermal paste on the CPU? Or intermittent loss of power or reduced power to the fan?

I will try Memtest. The only problem with overnight would be if the pc shut down while it was running, I'd think. I can do without it tomorrow during the day and use my laptop. Would the thermal paste be a problem after a year? The power is pretty stable and running off of a UPS.

I do appreciate all the input and suggestions. I'm usually pretty good about running these things down, but this one has me stumped.

When it comes to my truck and my computer, I firmly believe if anything can go wrong, it will. Since computers are put together by people, and people are not perfect, who can say what will go wrong and when. And a few more of Murphy's truisms.

Murphy Laws Site - Computers Laws

As to the thermal paste, what if it was a bad batch that managed to get through quality control? The ac power coming out of the UPS might be fine. But what if there's a problem with the CPU fan itself, or the wiring going to the fan? Or the fan RPMs slow down under load? Not saying any of these are responsible for the shut downs. But... if it is heat related it could be anything that generates heat. Mobo, CPU, PSU, UPS, memory, etc. etc.

I'm going to run this by a couple of friends to see if they have any thoughts.

You are so right about Mr. Murphy!!!

It's been up for over an hour now with no shutdown, but I've canceled everything that starts up if it's not essential (probably a good idea anyway :). I've got my external fan off (before I lose a finger to it) and the GPU is running 56 degrees.

I wish it would just work or not. This makes me crazy. Thanks for checking with your friends. Any and all help gratefully accepted.

Talked to three people and got three different opinions. One of 'em I hadn't even considered. A problem involving Power Management settings where the UPS is telling the computer it's on battery power vs. ac and the computer is shutting itself off. There might be a System Event Log entry with specific codes for ShutdownActionType, ShutdownEventCode, and ShutdownReason. If you open the event viewer you could also check for any other problems at or around the time of shutdowns.

What information appears in event logs (Event Viewer)?

You know, I have wondered why it happens in such an orderly manner...yet randomly and this will be worth a look. It happens 20 minutes or so after I boot the pc...then it happens four or five times. It never happens later in the day. However, it doesn't happen every day. I'll check the events to see if this gives me a clue. Today it hasn't overheated with or without the external fan. The svchost is still running about 200,000, but that could be a totally separate issue and may not be causing the shutdown, nor the overheating. I'll report back, but for now, I'm making hay while the sun shines (and while the computer stays up) and getting some paying work done.

Thanks to everyone for their help!

Hope the Event Viewer sheds some light on this. It's definitely a strange problem.