CPU temp spikes, Random BSOD's, other errors

[seligman]

My computer is rebooting at random times (load, or no load).

Today, I noticed that the CPU fan will speed up and slow down in 2 or 3 second intervals. I opened PC Probe II to check the CPU temp. In one minute, the CPU idle temp fluctuates from 35 degrees up to 44 degrees. It usually jumps 3 degrees at a time, up or down. The motherboard temp is a steady 39 degrees C. Also this morning, as Windows XP was loading, I got an error message that said "could not write to memory" or something like that. I clicked OK and Windows loaded, but several programs or services crashed and wanted me to report errors.

The rebooting problem began about 6 months ago. It would do this once a month and go away. Now, it's everyday, or sometimes, multiple times per day. When it crashes, a BSOD message sometimes flashes before rebooting, but not long enough for me to read it. I've found that shutting the computer down for 30+ minutes helps make the rebooting problem go away. The Mobo heat pipe seems hot when this happens, but not scorching hot. None of the heatsink grills have dust in them.

I figured this was a PSU problem from the start, but now I'm not sure.

Any ideas?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
Crucial Ballistix 2GB memory DDR2 PC6400
Antec True Power Trio 550-watt
XFX 7600GS video card

 

[o1die]

I would check the cpu heatsink, and reinstall with fresh thermal grease. I would also run memtest, a free download, to check your crucial ram. One stick may be bad.

 

[seligman]

I will try that.

Last night and this morning, a new problem has arisen. IE7, Firefox, Dr. Watson Postmortem Debugger are crashing regularly.

This morning, however, no random reboots.

 

[seligman]

OK, the random rebooting is gone.

I put fresh Arctic Silver 5 on the CPU and swapped out the RAM with DDR2 sticks from a different computer.

The CPU temp still fluctuates, but not as much. It remains in the 35 to 40° range, so that's an improvement. I don't understand what's happening, though. I had Arctic Silver 5 on there before, and it's been stable and cool. Would defective RAM elevate the CPU temps?

 

[jstnkim]

Crucial is crap, but sadly yes, for some odd random issues. rarely ever but there is a chance a ram will give you bsod.
a bad ram wouldn't be the only cause of your issue.
however if you had a bad hsf install, and a bad issued ram jolting. got your self bsod some what caused by bad ram. retarded ram with bad latencys > cpu speeding up to work with it > bad hsf install = over heating

 

[seligman]

I sat here with no programs running, no load, and the Idle temp jumped 6 degrees at once. That's what concerned me, I guess I'm not used to sudden changes like that.

The reason I know it's the CPU fan is because I watched the RPM in PC Probe. When the CPU temp rose, the RPM's followed with it. My video card doesn't have a fan, so that's not it.

My system is several degrees cooler with different RAM, so take it for what it's worth. Not to mention it's completely stable now.