Thread: Overheating cause multiple reboots?

Hi all, this is my 1st time posting even though I read this forum daily. I’ve read through most of the reboot issues other people come across and I feel my case might be a little different as well as would like some assist to get rid of some light on my case.

I have a pretty old system that I've built in '02:
Athlon xp3200+
nForce2 ultra 400 BIOS 1004
1.5 gig Kingston HyperX pc3200 ram
Antec TruePower 350w
eVGA 7600gs AGP (using cd driver for lack of support of new drivers)
NEC 20wmgx2 LCD

Regarding 2 weeks ago I've made some improvement as well as in my RAM (from 512 1.5gig of same accurate RAM, from 1 stick in single channel mode to 3 sticks in dual channel) along with video card (from Radeon 8500LE-->GeForce 7600gs) because I required to max out this system before passing it to my Gfx as well as building a new system next year for myself. Everything worked fine until this morning when I woke up to locate my PC constantly rebooting itself every 2-3 seconds. My LCD wouldn’t even be capable to show the system reboots itself. I physically powered down the system by switching off my power supply from the switch in the rear. After about an hour I turned on my system and the whole thing booted up normal. I worked on my PC for 2 hours with no trouble. Before I left for work I left Azureus on to carry on doing some things, no other apps were release. 3 hours later my Gfx comes home to find my computer doing its self reboot every 2-3 seconds once more. I haven't been capable to test out more of my system because I have no other PC at home and hence im posting at work. My initial impression is that it's over heating, but I've never encountered that trouble in the past 5 years using this system as well as my computer didn't over heat after my upgrades for 2 weeks (as well as I leave the PC on most of the time for downloads over night). Any idea? Thanks in advance and I'll try to follow up as much as I can.

If you believe it’s over heating, do you have software that check the CPU temp?

Speed fan is free of charge:

Speed Fan

Also, if your temps look all right, maybe running Memtest could help out you verify if the RAM is functioning properly:

Memtest86

You can download as well as burn the ISO to a CD to run that program for around 6 hours at the most, I think.

Also, as it’s around 4 years old, did you blow out the DIMM slots to free it of dust? doubt if some dust is causing some problem with the RAM.