Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe + AMD XP3200+

[dshill]

System Spec:

Case: ThermalTake XaserV Series - WinGo V7000A (with 5 fans)
PSU: 550w ATX Dual Fan (think its a Q-Tec)
M/board: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe with optional Wi-Fi Card (BIOS Version 1012) with additional heatsink and fan on Northbridge
CPU: AMD Athlon XP3200+ with standard heatsink and fan
RAM: 2x 512Mb DDR PC3200/400
Video: Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce FX 5900XT 128Mb
HDD: Maxtor 160Gb 8Mb Cache Serial ATA
DVD: MSI 16x DVD
CDR/DVD Writer: BTC DVD/CDR Burner
Sound: Creative Audigy 2

This is my current system setup, and everything is set to default in the bios apart from the cpu fan which is set to run at full speed all the time.

The problem Im having is that my PC has just started to intermittently power itself off. It doesnt matter what I am doing (playing games, word processing etc) I can even be in the BIOS watching the temps but it just switches itself off and I have to unplug the power from the PSU before I can get it to reboot again. The problem seemed to start after my lovely wife managed to bring the My Doom virus onto my pc! I used the relevant virus removal tool I have checked the PC with several virus scanners and its showing up as clean, Ive also run SpyBot and Ad-Aware as well.

I have checked all power cables, fans etc and everything seems ok. Ive monitored the cpu temp and it sits nicely at mid to high 40's C so i cant see it being a heating problem.

Im now at a total loss as to what to do now!

Any comments or suggestions would be very welcome.

Many thanks in advance

[Gizmo]

If you are having this problem while sitting in the BIOS screen watching temps, then MyDoom and spyware are not your problem. Your problem is almost certainly hardware based.

I don't remember for sure, but I think the A7N8V uses a socket thermistor for temps, so it is possible that you are experiencing a temperature shutdown. However, most boards that do a temp shutdown will give you a siren on some kind indicating that fact.

I would try pulling the HSF, cleaning the thermal paste from both it and the CPU, applying a new layer of thermal paste, and re-attaching the HSF. Remember to use a THIN layer of thermal paste!