Overheating Spreaders

[BlankPro]

I am fixing a friend's Compaq desktop PC that restarts as WinXP loads. When I opened it, it was covered with cat hair but removing it was not the solution. Cleaning the heat sink cooled the processor it seems but the other heat spreader on the MoBo and the one on the graphics card are still pretty hot. Anyone have any ideas or is it likely that some components need to be replaced? It is only 1.5 years old.

Thanks!

[thekingofpain]

Those things are supposed to get hot---after the de-furring does it still do the immediate re-boot?
Its probably not heat related if it re-boots within 30 secs of starting the machine up cold...

[BlankPro]

You are probably right. I just know that has been the problem with many computers I have looked at. It is running WinXP. When the Start-up screen comes on, it does its little scrolling bar thing but when that is done, it restarts rather than go to the logon. Do you think it could be a short?

[tpik]

Win XP and Win 2000 have a default setting to restart at just about any error. It makes things difficult to analyze when it blows through and restarts the computer. Settings / Control Panel / System / Advanced / Startup and Recovery / Settings. Make sure the box is UNCHECKED where it says "Automatically Restart" under System Failure."

[BlankPro]

It was the CPU. It had just been running so hot that it was pretty much toast. We replaced it and it's as good as new...

...as good as a pentium any way.

Thanks for your help!

BlankPro