I have a similar problem with my amd x2 4200+ - shuts down for no real reason. I too have high temp readings, but the shutdowns can occur when hot or cold - but always happen quicker on a hot day. I do not get any other issues - like hangs, freezes slow downs - pc operates perfectly up until it shuts down.

It is under warranty so took it back to shop twice but it would not shut down there and so they have suggested it is actually the external power quality.

Everyone (IT friends, IT troubleshooting online, IT shops, IT manager at work) suggested it was a heating issue - so first I cleaned it all out without effect, then I upgraded the psu without effect, then everyone thought maybe the heatsink on the cpu so reseated that without effect. Then it was thought maybe the case airflow so I operated the pc open with a room fan blowing in it, without effect.

I live in a very hot area in Australia and apparently we have voltage issues constantly on hot days due to equipment (resistors, capacitors and things) overloading and malfunctioning in the heat. Although other equipment in my house is not affected (including my very old pc) apparently more powerful pcs are more sensitive to these drops in voltage at the mains power and will cause a pc to shut off.

So, I am currently waiting for a very hot day to try it out on a UPS or AVR to see if that helps the issue. In theory it should control the voltage reaching the pc and so it will be happy and not shut down. Will post here again if it does work

Well i don't know if you got it figured it out by now, if you did good , if not then there are few reasons and solutions for over heating CPU and automatically shutting down.

- when you play games continuously or do some kind of encoding stuff, the processor is engaged, normally processor uses only 50% of its capacity, but if you do high end stuff or play high graphics games, a lot of processor power is used and heat builds up in the processor and near by motherboard. But to counter this processors come with fan mounted on heat conducting metal object to dissipate the heat.

Likely causes are since it is a new computer :

1. The CPU fan is not working efficiently, usually it should spin at 3000 rpm at full loads, but in your case it might have been spinning not more than 1200 rpm.

2. The heat sink material was not properly installed during the processor installation.

3. BIOS settings might be limiting the CPU fan to work at full potential due to acoustic settings.

As a result of which the CPU overheats and temperatures goes up to 85 to 90 degrees Celsius. So as a safety precaution the motherboard is programmed to shutdown the power after the temperature crosses the safety limit of working environment because that much heat can damage parts of motherboard.

Recommendations:

1. 70 % of the cases in which motherboard automatically shuts down the power, there will be probably some damaged caused to the motherboard. So check first if your motherboard is fine and doing good.
2. Upgrade your CPU fan with now a days available highly efficient liquid cooling of air cooling solutions for the CPU. In which case your CPU temperature wont rise above 60 - 65 degrees Celsius at full load for even 24 hours and the idle temperature would be around 38 - 45 degrees.

Hope it helps
- suchakradhar

I have seen this problem on Gigabyte AM2 mainboards, I had to lower the Vcore on some to get them to be able to run something like prime for any amount of time.

Even fitting lots of case fans they will still overheat if both cores are kept at 100% load for a reasonable period of time.

I have stopped selling Gigabyte mainboards as a result and supply ASUS now, they throttle the CPU back when it is under load to a very low speed if the temp looks like getting high, not a ideal system for gaming but works well for office PC's.

For Gaming PC's I only recommend Intel based systems now due to the above problems.

Did you ensure that your temerature inside the tower casing (pc box) is below 40 degress celcius? Having a powerful CPU fan cooler won't help much if your casing temperature is 45 to 50 degress.

I installed extra chasis fans on the rear of the box and put fans on the front to blow fresh air into the box.

The disk drives can run up to 70 degrees celcius without the cooling fans.

My Cousing Had The Same Problem Going On
He Used To Play For An Hour And His Computer Shut Off Out Of No Where
Our Solution Was To Get A New Case! Cooler Master Sniper
A Bigger One With A Better Airflow And That Fixed The Problem
Now He Can Play As Much As He Wants Without Getting Outrageous Temperatures

CPU heat up and shut down reason for me was bad external power supply . My CPU shutting off at merely 50-57 celcius
solution i tried : I came to know that my Ac input power supply was fluctuating .I checked the and repaired the Fuse on the AC circuit and my problem solved. You all can also check this.