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Sometimes I hate computers. I went back to playing HL2 episodes 1 & 2. My computer keeps screwing up. My display goes blank, monitor goes into power save mode but the tower is still on. My specs below are based on HP Pavilion p6510y, in which I added a few things, like the geforce 9800GT. I'm thinking its a temperature issue. I also want to upgrade my video card and add ram.
according to a hardware monitor...
mainboard 72c and chassis fan 1418rpm
cpu1 27c cpu fan 900rpm
cpu2 47c
gpu 55c

not sure what a good temp range is anymore.

any ideas people?

A 20C difference between the two cores and a motherboard being 72C leads me to conclude that the hardware monitor has seriously mislabeled the temperature values... I would make the guess that:
mainboard 27C
CPU1 47C
CPU2 55C
GPU 72C
I'm also curious as to whether or not the A64 X2 4000+ generation of chips actually has two temperature diodes. One of the values might actually be the motherboard's measurement of the CPU temperature, and the other being the CPU's own measurement. This would explain the speculated 8C difference which is still a lot if they are really supposed to be each core's temp.

As for the problem, I'd first try using a compressed air can and just blow the video card from both ends of the airflow path (or just... all over, until dusty air stops coming out of it), there's probably a layer of dust blocking any sort of effective airflow. Monitor blacking out while the PC is still running does hint that the GPU is the part that's dying.

I figured both the hardware monitor wasn't reading right and the GPU is at fault. I open my case and blow it out like 2-3 times a year, maybe its due again. I will try that. Never had a problem with my old 7600gt. Also I figure the 9800gt is outdated. Am looking at gt630 to gtx560 for replacements. As for the ram, I have 4 gig installed and only just realized I have them in banks 3 and 4. I was going to get a pair of 4 gig sticks to fill banks 1 and 2. Is there a better hardware monitor out there to use?

OK, Added 8GB memory, new video card and PS. Specs in signature. See if that works.

Why GT 430??

Here's the GT 430 being significantly slower than the 8800 GT on a Source engine game:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3973/nvid ... -gt-430/10

Here's the 8800 GT and 9800 GT (they are actually the exact same GPU and specs) performing equally on a Source engine game :
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ ... iew/599/11

Q.E.D. you got a significantly slower card.

And lol I noticed now you have a quad core, I forgot

Horray 12GB RAM, definitely run something like IntelBurnTest or prime95 on the new hardware, especially since it's a mixed RAM setup.

EDIT:
Oh quite important!!! Higher number of RAM sticks add strain to the memory controller on the CPU and actually lower the max stable OC you can pull off, so IntelBurnTest or prime95 is a MUST to confirm if your 4GHz OC is still stable with the additional RAM. Oh and don't be phased by the fact that IntelBurnTest has Intel in the name

Please don't consider the GT 630 either.
"As a result the GT 630 and GT 620' are both variations on the 18-month old 'Fermi' GT 430 card, making each of them 40 nanometers of yesteryears' technology."
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/301560 ... nding.aspx

GTX 560 is a good option though.

The game works good now. That 560 needs 450W ps. I have 400W. How about the GTX550 Ti?

The GTX 550 Ti is quite a bit slower than the GTX 560, I'd still go with the 560.

The wattage requirement is a guideline and heavily depends on PSU quality and whether or not the PSU is built the "new" way where the 12V rail is prioritized.

The CPU and video card power cables both only take 12V nowadays, so an older type of PSU (read: cheap) that has lots of Amps on the 5V and 3.3V is pretty useless and you don't get to use up anywhere near the advertised wattage, ever, on any sort of modern hardware.
Take this for example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817148042
3.3V - 30A
5V - 35A
12V - 31A

vs this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817171060
3.3V - 24A
5V - 15A
12V - 35A

The 3.3V and 5V amperages become significantly lower on a modern PSU, while the 12V rail rises by 4A. Here are the watt translations:
(30A - 24A) * 3.3V = 19.8 watts lower
(35A - 15A) * 5V = 100 watts lower
(35A - 31A) * 12V = 48 watts higher

So, while both PSUs are rated at 450W, the modern one is able to supply 48 more watts to the CPU and GPU. Or, the way I see it, the cheap PSU isn't giving me 48 watts where it matters and is, therefore, much like a "402W" modern type PSU with an inflated advertised wattage.

The general notion is that the video card required PSU wattage is inflated so that the cheap PSU's are accounted for. Modern PSU's will allow you to safely run a video card that "requires" a wattage higher than that of the PSU.

I can't find the amperage info for the Dynex you got because Newegg doesn't seem to carry it (red flag right there, IMO) but it looks to be a cheap PSU.
http://www.amazon.com/Dynex-DX-400WPS-W ... B000X1R5HM

But considering you got it within a few hours, you probably got it at Best Buy or something...
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dynex%26%23 ... Id=8311052

I would definitely return it and order the Cooler Master I linked (or others) for the same price (+ MIR!!!).

EDIT:
Here is how much each card actually uses:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zota ... es/25.html
Add consumption of CPU and everything else and you'll know what kind of PSU you'll need.

FWIW:
This is the highest power draw I saw with my Kill-A-Watt while fully loading my desktop in sig
392W Full Load (RTHDRIBL + Heaven + octo Prime)

How about something I can get that doesn't involve getting a new PS (I got this one for $30). I can spend up to $120, including bringing this video card back for credit. I wish I could have a list of all geforce cards, from 9800GT and up. Then I could do my own price searching.
Unless a card like this will work with my PS...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... _-14500241
then I will get it.

DX-400WPS
3.3V 30A
5V 28A
12V1 14A
12V2 15A
-12V .3A
5VsB 2.5A
Combined 3.3 V and 5 V: 120 Watts

Side note. Why is the board clock off. It is 7:20am EST (-5 GMT) but the board shows 5:50am. thats about 1.5 hours off.

Ran IntelBurnTest.

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 630 Processor
Clock Speed: 2.80 GHz
Active Physical Cores: 4
Total System Memory: 12279 MB
Stress Level: Standard (1024 MB)
Testing started on 5/27/2012 10:46:27 AM

Time (s)- Speed (GFlops)- Result
68.321-- 13.0836--------- 3.560557e-002
66.593-- 13.4230--------- 3.560557e-002
68.171-- 13.1124--------- 3.560557e-002
68.134-- 13.1194--------- 3.560557e-002
70.016-- 12.7668--------- 3.560557e-002
69.773-- 12.8113--------- 3.560557e-002
67.642-- 13.2149--------- 3.560557e-002
69.281-- 12.9024--------- 3.560557e-002
69.033-- 12.9485--------- 3.560557e-002
69.197-- 12.9180--------- 3.560557e-002
Testing ended on 5/27/2012 11:01:32 AM
Test Result: Success.

not sure what it all means but it said my CPU is stable.

Pretty good list of cards going back to 8800GT/9800GT all ranked:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011 ... ,2662.html

I don't know with your PSU lol...

OK. I will return both video card and PS. Ill probably get a 500w PS and the gtx 560. post when complete.

edit - got a 520W PS and the GTX 560 TI

Why no love for the Radeon cards?

I have a 5870 and it has been tearing up every game I play at 1080p and high settings?

Sometimes I like to stick with what works. I have only had 2 video cards crap out before there time since I have been working with computers. Not a bad track record for Nvidea. I'm sure Radeon cards work great.

Is there some kind of recommended test to run on my system to see performance?

You could try something like PC MARK software but really it comes down to trying out a few games.

If you have anything newer do that. If not download the starcraft 2 demo (or some other "new" demo's) and try to run them at 1080p.

If you can run games like Modern Warfare 2 and SC2 on higher settings at 1080p then you have a pretty sufficient system.

Your GTX 560Ti is pretty much in line with my Radeon 5870 and our cards are decently high in the current graphics card hierarchy.

You have 12GB of ram and a decently powerful chip at 4GHZ.

Your system should be able to perform well in almost any application today. You have a decently up to date machine. I don't think you'll see any performance issues for a while.