Question Computer runs fine, dies when starting Minecraft.

[willis11]

This has happened on this computer a few times before, and replacing the PSU has always fixed my problem (for a few months anyway), but I just got a new PSU and the problems isn't going away this time. I have an 8 core AMD CPU, 16 gigs of DDR3 RAM, on an ASUS M5A88-M motherboard. I did have to repair the CPU plug on the motherboard a while back (one pin broke off and I made a new one after overheating in that area melted some plastic and the pin came out) and I suspect some issue there may have been causing the PSUs to die early, but now even with a new PSU I am still having this problem, both with the Hercules 600 watt I just bought, and my better LSP 750 watt PSU from another computer (that has no problem playing Minecraft for my kids). Both shut down as soon as the game tries to run (after the green bar is fully loaded, but before I see the game begin). I thought maybe something was over heating, so I used reverse on my shop vac to blow air over the CPU, and other areas that get hot, but none of that helped. Reset my ram in different slots, that didn't help either. Thoughts? Do I need to buy a separate GPU (never used one before)? Or a new motherboard?

 

[willis11]

Also, this computer used to be my number crunching computer for some code I wrote that uses a lot of the CPU and RAM but no graphics, and I noticed if I try to run that old code it also makes the computer shut off, making me think it's not a GPU thing...

 

[willis11]

I tried taking the the CPU that I thought was defective and putting it in another computer, and it had no issues loading and playing Minecraft. Clearly the PSU is not the culprit, right?

So I pulled the CPU heatsink to check the thermal paste (I've never changed it in the 6 years or so I have had this system) and it pulled the CPU out with the heatsink stuck to it. Took a very long time with lots of alcohol and finally risking it with a razor blade before it finally came off and I could see that it had been put on so tight that there was almost no grease it was so thin, looked like nothing on maybe 40% it was so thin. Could lack of sufficient grease have been the issue? that it heats up so fast when starting Minecraft that it just shuts down?

I'm thinking either that, or the Motherboard is having problems, likely related to the damaged CPU four pin power plug that I had to remake one of the pins on, like maybe it's not a solid connecting and has problems with more power is running through it?

Any help from smarter people out there?