I have an AMD FX-8150 that is overheating while doing minor things.

[Nathan Manker]

Currently, I've been having problems with intermittent shutdowns and it seems to be linked to my CPU or perhaps my PSU.

Within the past couple days, while playing a 3D browser game (Runescape,) my computer has been shutting down without warning. No bluescreen, just goes straight to off, it boots back up without any issue.

At first I assumed it may be the PSU (It may still be if someone tells me otherwise, I personally don't know); However, when I checked around and used programs such as CPUID HWMonitor, the only thing that I see linked to the crashes is that my CPU is changing in temperature and wattage rapidly and I don't know why.

It was idling hot (anywhere from 40 - 60 degrees celcius), so I took out the heatsink cleaned it up and re-applied the TIM and it went from those temperatures to idling at 23 degrees celcius.

Now however, it's still appearing to over-heat and crash, while playing the simplest of games.
I can be doing something as simple as having one browser open and CPUID HWMonitor shows that my the my package power is anywhere from 59W to 78W, with it constantly changing very rapidly for no reason as it's not under any load. The temperature also spikes during this going up 12+ degrees celcius everytime it happens, with temps as high as a 102 celcius temp spike while playing a game such as the aforementioned Runescape that causes a crash, that just recently started to occur.

Is this my CPU that's causing these crashes? Or do I just need a new heatsink with better TIM?

Thanks for any possible solutions, it's appreciated.

 

[synphul]

If your cpu is reaching those temps it's likely the cause for your shutdowns. Most modern cpu's will shutdown when they reach too high of a temp. Actually they're supposed to throttle back power/performance but any number of things can throw that off and high temps can still cause glitches/shutdowns or blue screens. You didn't mention which cooler you're using so I'm assuming the stock cooler? You may want to try a better aftermarket cooler that can dissipate more heat to keep your cpu temps under control. Not uncommon when a cpu is peaking at 100% load on a stock cooler.