[mdlug] computer shutting down

[Wolfger]

So far, so good. Checked the board for bad caps, and didn't see any.
Found a foreign substance on top of the CPU heatsink... kinda looked
like strands of shredded cheese, except brown and crispy (which is
probably what cheese on a heat sink would look like pretty quickly).
Cleaned that off, blew out the heat sink with compresses air, blew out
the power supply with compressed air, unplugged PS from the board,
blew out the connector and reattached it to the board. If my problem
was indeed an overheating problem, that helped a lot, because the
operating temp dropped by about 8 degrees C after that. I gamed for
awhile (3D first-person Windows MMOG via Cedega), and the temp never
hit 50 (was previously running up in the mid-to-high 50s during this
game). I just don't really think it was a temp problem, because 2 of
the 3 mysterious powerdowns  happened while I was AFK). I guess the
next step, if my computer crashes again) is a new PS. I found one
that's 580 W with two fans (mine is 400 with one fan) for ~$30.
I'm still scratching my head about the supposed cheese, and how that
got there. There's an open grating in the top of my case, but it's not
directly over the CPU, and I didn't find this stuff anywhere else.

-- 
Wolfger
http://randomsynapsefiring.eponym.com/
AOL IM: wolf4coyot
Yahoo!Messenger: wolfgersilberbaer
Skype: wolfger88