Computer shutting down without an open case and external fan

[Rodex123]

Hey there well i built this computer around 3 or 4 months ago, taking advice from the many people on this forum, here are the specs

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

FSP Group (Fortron Source) AX450-PN ATX12V 450W Power Supply

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model
BX80557E6600

G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD

It has been an amazing computer up until about a week ago, i was bringing it back from a LAN party and i think i knocked something out of place, cause now if i dont have the case cover off with a regular fan blowing into the computer it will shut down when i try to play games like MTW II or Bioshock, now when i do have the case cover off and fan running it runs flawlessly and can play Bioshock on max settings. But now i cant even DL a torrent and play a game at the same time with the fan running. I think i hit something out of place or my PSU is dying, any suggestions?

When im not playing games my CPU temp is around 50 C, but when i play it shoots up to around 60

[DaMadScientist]

sounds like your computer is generally overheating, overheating will lead to random shut downs, take the CPU fan and heatsink off, reapply thermal paste and try again

[Rodex123]

Thermal paste, never applied that before

errr that doesnt sound good


where can i get it

[DaMadScientist]

its called thermal paste or thermal grease or thermal compound, its what you put between the CPU and Heatsink to help the CPU dissipate heat better, you can get it at any electronic store, it looks like a little plastic syringe...if you never even put it on your computer, your computer wouldnt even boot up

[Rodex123]

k well i know for sure i didnt put it on there, must of came with it

ill check it out

[veedubfreak]

If you are still using the heatsink that came with the cpu it was preapplied to the heatsink.