Overheat?

[metacognition]

Sometimes when I use my PC and play games or surf the web, it shows a black screen and it says that it reached temperatures of 70 degrees. I'm not sure why this happens as I have ventilated my computer well. (No side-casing .) It's been getting very annoying because it kills whatever I was doing.
Thanks in advance.

[ledzeppelin]

by 70 degrees they mean celsius not fareingheit. so that is about 158 degrees farenhiet

[Sinkingships7]

Did you build the PC yourself? If so, check to make sure that you didn't accidentally put the CPU fan on backwards. Put your hand in front of it (while it's on) and see what you feel. If you feel a bunch of air coming from it, then it's on the wrong way and you need to reverse it.

Else, have you overclocked your CPU?

[ledzeppelin]

what you might want to do is buy a ventilator for the bottom of your computer at best buy, or you could put it on a surface which will not heat up quickly, therefore not send hot air back into your computer. The last option would be to buy a stand that would hold it up at an angle so no hot air would come back into your computer. The real problem with a laptop is when you have it on a surface and the hot air that was released from the laptop hits the surface and goes back into your computer.

[Dr Small]

Check the BIOS. It is probably a failsafe setting to keep the system from overheating. If it is set, then the problem is that it is overheating, and begin checking fans.

[swisscow]

what you might want to do is buy a ventilator for the bottom of your computer at best buy, or you could put it on a surface which will not heat up quickly, therefore not send hot air back into your computer. The last option would be to buy a stand that would hold it up at an angle so no hot air would come back into your computer. The real problem with a laptop is when you have it on a surface and the hot air that was released from the laptop hits the surface and goes back into your computer.

I thought the OP had problems with a PC without any sides, not a laptop

[roffemuffe]

I will assume you assembled you computer yourself.

The cooling paste between cpu and cooling fan is crucial. I you put on too much or too little paste, it's not effective and you need to clean, then re-apply the paste. The tube explains roughly how much to use.

70 degrees is quite a lot and will reduce your cpu life with quite a bit.

As a previous poster mentioned, put your hand close to the cpu-fan and have a feel for yourself, don't touch or you'll risk a burn!

Your sides are off, so airflow in the cabinet shouldn't be a problem, unless you stuffed your cabinet into a closet or on a cramped shelf.

If this doesn't solve your problem, you may be looking at some more serious problems, such as defective hardware.

[Canis familiaris]

Thermal paste may have not been applied well. In such a case there may be a gap between the CPU and the heatsink which does not allow effective method of conduction of heat from the CPU which may lead to overheating. I suggest you pluck out the heatsink, reapply the thermal paste, and reinsert the heatsink.