Need Help with CPU Overheating
Hello all,
I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I also hope that someone can help me (or maybe just assuage my fears). I know almost nothing about PC hardware, so please bear with me.
I bought a fully custom AVADirect PC about 7 1/2 years ago. It's been fantastic. Thank you!
Given it's age, everyone will likely laugh at the specs, but it does just about everything I want it to. I have the original order form somewhere with all of the components, but here's a quick rundown from HWiNFO:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (Yorkfield)
4 GB DDR2 SDRAM
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB GDDR3 SDRAM
The other day I turned on my "monitor" (a 52" LCD TV) and found a black screen which said something along the lines of "CPU Overheat...something...Press F1 to Resume". Sorry, but that's close enough; I panicked when I saw that. I pressed F1 and a Windows update screen appeared, Stage 3, which completed and then eventually led me to my desktop. Apparently my PC had rebooted and tried to update in the middle of the night.
Because of the overheat warning, I downloaded HWiNFO and Core Temp. Currently, they are both reporting that all four cores are at or over 90 degrees C. This is just while idling at the desktop. Yesterday, they reported mostly 65 - 80 degrees, with spikes over 90. HWiNFO reports that the cores are throttling down frequently.
My PC, however, seems to be running mostly fine. The fans seem normal, just about everything seems normal. I can run programs, etc... Guitar Pro 6 and Amplitube 3 both seem fully functional (though they're both kinda glitchy anyway) and can still be ran simultaneously. Opening them both yesterday had no effect on core temp. I'm not a PC gamer (I'm a console guy...shoot me), so can't test that way.
The only real issues I've been having have been with certain webpages. I can't go to sites like fallout.wikia.com and some others (mostly sites with lots of video ads, it seems) because they lag, freeze and Firefox eventually freaks out and crashes. Internet Explorer is basically useless and lags horribly all the time (I haven't used it in years). Most of the internet works fine though. Oddly enough, I uninstalled Flash Player yesterday and the Fallout Wiki page ran great for a little while, then HWiNFO showed a spike in core temp (above safe levels) and when I tried switching over to Firefox again, it was unresponsive and then crashed shortly after.
I honestly don't know what's going on. Is this a hardware issue? Could I have a virus? Could a virus even cause this? I used to have Kaspersky Pure 3.0, but after the license expired last year, I never got a new anti-virus program. In all the years I've been using PC's (basically since they were invented...anyone else remember Tandy?), I've only ever gotten one virus and in all the years I had Kaspersky, it only ever prevented two possible trojans. I'm not stupid when it comes to surfing the web.
I hope I've provided enough information, though please ask questions that may be relevant. The thought of my PC dying on me is freaking me out. I know it's old, but I'm disabled and low-income. An expense like this isn't really in my budget. Sorry if I'm rambling, but this is scary.
Any help, information, direction or, well, anything would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!