Every once in a while when i'm playing games or even sometimes playing videos in windows media player or burning a cd, the computer will freeze. the CPU temp is usually in the high 60s celcius when this happens, which i didn't think was hot enough to overheat the system. i'm also wondering why it gets that hot in the first place. here are my system's specs:

- Athlon XP 1600+
- ASUS A7A 266 board
- 256 MB DDR RAM
- CPU fan with copper heat sink, 1 exhaust case fan
- nvidia geforce2 32 MB video card
- SB Live! 5.1 sound card
- Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers total 90 watts
- Seagate 40 GB HD
- ATX mid-tower with 280 watt power supply
- LG 16x10x40 CDRW

the computer idles at about 58-60 C. when i take the side cover off that drops into the low 50s. but even sometimes when the cover's off it heats up enough to freeze everything when i'm running a program. i installed a case fan at the back, but that doesn't seem to be making much of a difference, at least to the idle temp.

okay, questions:

why does the system run so hot?

should the system be able to handle those temperatures?

could it be a power supply issue? would a, say, 400 watt power supply help?

or the video card? it's a geforce2 and it doesn't have a fan - just a heat sink. i just moved the sound card down a slot to give the video card some more breathing room.

when a computer overheats it normally shuts down, right? why is mine simply freezing?

any other advice? thanks.

Just my $.02 (I'm new on AMD issues)
did you use thermal paste or pad?
is it factory HSF?
are you over-clocking?
Freeze-up's mostly point at drivers & IRQ conflicks
280W is low (but not too low unless your maxed on IDE's)

I don't think i'm over-clocking. how can i tell? my cpu speed is set at 1400 mhz and the DIP switches are all set to the default off position.

i installed the cpu fan without using any thermal paste. i think my next step is to get some thermal paste - i never even knew that stuff existed until recently. how much of a difference does it make?

thermal paste will generally drop your temps by ~10C

I just got some silicone heat sink grease. The CPU's now running at 49 C. You're right, a 10 C drop. I haven't tested it with games or anything yet.

Just one question. Shouldn't an AMD chip be able to handle temperatures in the high 60s?