Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

I had some problem with my desktop pc lately and wanted to share it with you guys.
My pc started to freeze and after a while the system would restart independently with no error prompt. I checked the crash logs and they only said that the system restarted, with no indication of the crash reason.
With the help of Misha I removed the "auto restart" feature (surprisingly it's under "my computer" properties""). And waited for another crash. While stoops and I were moving on two opposite sides of the valley and shooting missiles at Takistani vehicles, it finally arrived. The computer restarted again, but now a message was saying that the processors overheated!
With the help of Draakon, I started to suspect my aging thermal paste (my pc is three years old) that connects the processors core with the thermal sink fan. I opened my case and started wiping the dust. Finally, I made up my mind and removed the heat sink, knowingly tearing off any remaining paste. To my surprise, the paste seemed like it never made contact between the core and the heat sink! It was evident that The paste never had any effect! That explained my normal working temperatures of 60-70 degrees that I learned to live with, but hate.
I went to my brother in law and issued a fresh new paste. Now, the temperatures are decreased by 20 to 30 degrees!
That's one problem solved. After being gratified with the solution to the temperature levels and playing some Skyrim, the computer restarted again, and loaded without windows 7 aero theme. Trying to reactivate it makes the pc to crash again.
Now I work without the theme, and all looked ok. Except that two days ago, the pc froze and rebooted again...
I hope that formatting and reinstalling windows will fix all the problems. But is it possible that the overheating permanently damaged my processors?

Normally a processor has a thermal switch to prevent overheating. But who knows what happens if it overheat too often? Hope a new install helps.

Greets Lob

Did you check GPU temperature too? I suspect it may be that your graphics card is clogged with dust. As I said before your particular model with regular stock heatsink is known to collect a lot of dust until a carpet of dust is formed. I had the same model, after two years without proper dust cleaning GPU temps were around 100c regularly.

As for the Aero, you probably erased something when you run cleaning software.

Misha, I didn't. But it's safe to assume I need to clean my GPU too since every now and then  I need to SHIFT+(-)"Flush" my Arma 2 because of a black screen.
But how do I do that? It's quite a shut box...

Well, I recommend you check GPU temperature after some intense gaming first before doing anything drastic as removing a heatsink. It is complicated procedure and you need to reapply thermal paste after that (look for instructions somewhere on the internet). I managed to get rid of carpet of dust without removing a heatsink using toothpick and vacuum cleaner, it was difficult process but with some patience it can be done.  ;D Of course, all this only applies if GPU overheating is your problem, if not, better not mess with this. 

As for constant need to flush the driver, it was happening to me also, not too often, but still did with my gtx275. I'm now using gtx560ti for over six months and not once had to flush.

Download and run GPU-Z, enable logging, play a while, and read the log. You'll be surprised

Thanks for the help so far guys. Here's an update:
After some testing that resolved in disconnecting my DVD drive, which apparently caused my computer not to start at all (don't know where that came from all of a sudden...), I disconnected my GPU and cleaned it as much as I could without taking it apart. After I reslotted it on the motherboard, all the problems have gone away!  No more freezing, no more black screen on startup and even windows 7 aero theme works now without causing the computer to boot.

Overlord I use some other GPU monitoring and tweaking program to have a more aggressive fan policy on my GTX 275. What are the advantages of the tool you linked me to?

Give a lot of use-full/less info about the card and monitor fan/speed/temperature among others. Probably not the best tweaker tool.