Normally CPU temps should be anywhere between 30 something to low 40's. My dad told me that 48 or so is the highest it should go.

 

48C? That's pretty low as a maximum allowable temp. IIRC, my AMD Athlon XP would regularly hit the 70's. (edit: According to the link it was rated up to the 90's).

The max temp under load depends on the chip architecture itself. 48C might be the max for your CPU model, but others are different.

http://www.maxitmag.com/forum/maxit-hardware/2826-maximum-cpu-temperature-guide.html

 

Ahh, I see. Ya, my computer would crash until we finally figured out that the Memory we had (Corsair) didn't like the motherboard, (or the heat I think), so we replaced it with Kingston or something like that. Never crashed after that.

 

If you weren't overclocking, then it was probably just bad RAM (ie. it was broken).

Heat very, very rarely affects RAM. All of those RAM modules with heatspreaders on them are mostly just for marketing. Overclocking often involves increasing the frequency that your system communicates with the RAM. Cheaper RAM modules can't handle that and that's why they crash.

 

Alright, I understand. I have a Ge-Force 8800GTS in my system. It gets super hot. You can't even touch it. My dad had to put a fan next to it just to cool it down 10 degrees.

 

Yeah, I've got an 8800GTS as well; so does Middy. How many MB's does yours have? (256, 320, 512, or 640)

Now that you've got extra cooling on it you might as well overclock it.

I started overclocking my 8800GTS when I found it couldn't handle Oblivion with several hacks and mods that enabled all of the pretty effects and Qarl's high quality texture packs. I had to dial back the grass, LOD and a bunch of the 3rd party textures iirc.

 

lol Nice. Mine's the 512mb I believe. I've played Oblivion with it too. Awesome game. Only peeve I have with Oblivion is the leveling system. I liked Morrowind's leveling system better. Other than that, very fun game. I installed OOC (Overhaul Mod 1.3 or somethin' like that).

I don't know if my computer's cooling system would be able to sustain the cooling process with the extra heat though.

 

Heh, that's why you have to test the video card under load. But afterwards whenever you have a crash (and boy can Oblivion crash -_-) you always wonder whether it's the software or the overclock that's made it screw up this time.

Thankfully you don't have to reset to overclock the card, you can do it all from software within Windows. Whenever I'm not playing Oblivion, I drop the overclock back to normal levels with RivaTuner.

Morrowind blew my mind far more than Oblivion did. Everyone raved about Oblivion, but Morrowind was the one that snuck up and bitch slapped me from out of nowhere.

 

lol Yes it certainly did. Morrowind was (and still is) awesome. I play it on occasion.

 

I had the same looping issue on my the laptop I take outside the house with me when I go smoke. It only does that when the laptop is jarred, now. I re-formatted it completely and then discovered that I no longer had a lot of the software that I used for random graphics design or my D2: LOD software. Now the screen blurs alot and will start flickering, so I gave up on it and threw into the corner. Anyone have any ideas on it?

 

How old/new is it?

 

It's a 2000-2002, I think. Not sure when it came out, I picked it up on a whim and redid the entire thing a couple of years ago. It's an IBM ThinkPad R40.

 

Wow. 7 or 8 years old? "Re-did"? As in replaced lots of parts in it?

 

Just threw a few RAM chips in and redid the processor and fan. It's never given me any problems up until now. I thought that old age might be catching up to it. Pity, it's actually a damn fine machine.

Anyone got any ideas to the contrary? I really don't like lugging this laptop around it's heavier than hell.

 

Buy a better one?

Flickering on the screen? Wires might be finally giving out. Try looking at that. Or its the video card finally giving you shit.

I have an old Ge-Force TI-4600. I had to replace it because the fan was finally dying. My games would not play 100%. They'd start doing weird shit in the graphics, and run all sluggish. So I replaced it with a Ge-Force 8400.

It might be your hardware finally giving out from long time use. I think keeping good care of it keeps it alive longer though, of course.

 

Meh, I'll probably just play with it after I go back to work just for something to do. So on to carrying around one of the others.....I knew I should have bought a smaller one instead of just the two larger ones.

Edit: Thanks yak and Richard.

 

It sounds like the backlights in your LCD panel are giving out. I don't think it's repairable, but google it to find out.

 

I think commonly pop-up problems with Laptops is the hardware issues. It's either the recharge plug (I think they do this shitty one on purpose), or its some other little problem you gotta pay money up the kazoo for.