BIOS Updates forum

When my computer boots up, the first boot works fine, but then after i reboot it a second time, windows xp crashes. I am thinking it is my processor because, when i put my hand on the case, it is warm (but it is usually cool). When I open up my computers case, the heat sink it extremely hot. I have the old fashioned heat sink with no fan. Could it mean that my heatsink isnt good enough to keep my processor cool?

without further investigation: yes!

what kind of cpu is in you machine (brand, name, speed)? anything above ~133MHz core speed requires a cooler with a fan (yes, i know that there are exceptions).

If the motherboard BIOS can read temperature, what is the CPU running at?

I have an AMD K6-2 running at 500 MHz, and my BIOS dosent have the option to read the temperature of the CPU.

an AMD K6-2 500MHz surely needs a heatsink with fan! install a fan or get a bigger heatsink with fan installed. S370 or Socket 462 heatsinks will work fine (and they are cheap, too)

I have switched back to my old Intel MMX processor (that never crashed my computer before), and the results are the same. I have used the western digital diagnostics floppy disk, and ran the exended drive test but no errors were found on the harddrive. I am thinking it may be windows XP itself. Could it be that the OS is bad?

Even the Pentium MMX does need a heatsink with fan (or a large heatsink wiithout fan and good airflow).
Your Windoze should post some error codes and messages - please post then to get an idea what's wrong.
Maybe the extremely hot running K6-2 damaged some parts of your motherboard by overheating.

Okay, it looks like windows was the problem. When i reformatted the harddrive, the computer stopped crashing.

Doesn't XP play games if you make changes to the hardware if it's a
non vlk version, activation is based on hardware, i'm sure iv'e read
that certain hardware changes are acceptable, & some aren't.

Okay, now windows is again crashing on me. I bought the heatsink with the fan, but now i have been looking at the harddrive and it seems to get hot when i use the AMD processor, but when i use the Intel processor the harddrive seems to be cool. Could it be the harddrive that is making my computer crash? I have once again ran the westerndigital diskette and no errors showed. Should I return the harddrive to Western Digital?

Strange, do you have a multimeter to check the PSU voltages ?

The K6-2 needs more power than your MMX, looks like the PSU is only able to feed this by increasing power output and the 12V rail gets out to hell (over 13V)

When i said windows was crashing i meant it was freezing, i made a mistake.

Okay, now i am 100% shure it is my harddrive, I took out the AMD K6-2 and left the computer to cool off for 7 hours. When the 7 hours were up, i put the Intel MMX processor and turned on the computer. I left the computer idle with no programs running for 2 hours, and when i opened up the case (while the computer was still on), I put my finger on the harddrive and the the thing got so hot it burned my finger. I put in another harddrive to make shure that the AMD processor didnt screw up my power supply. When i put in the new drive, i left the computer idle for another 2 hours and the new harddrive was running cool. So I guess i will just get an RMA number from western digital and replace my harddrive.

If a processor is damaged then it will cause unusual system behaviour.

Also if it is running at an abnormal speed or the FSB is running at an unusual speed then someone I know once had some programs not quite running correctly as a result of this.

But i have noticed something in the system properties, it says that the processor is running at 496MHz when it should be running at 500MHz, is this regular?