Forum Discussion
silverberry23 You can see the full bug check code in the Reliability Monitor, among other places. Click Windows key-R and enter perfmon /rel in the run box, and you'll get a chart listing errors and updates with a column for each day. You can right-click an error and select "view technical details" for more information.
If this is in fact a simple case of overheating, it's possible the issue is the mounting of the cooler or even the thermal paste itself. First, make sure the fan(s) can spin freely and that they do with the computer running. You can turn it on with the cover off, it's fine.
If that's not the issue, please take the cooler off again, remove all the paste (isopropyl alcohol works well and is cheap), and reapply it, this time using as little as possible: a single dollop that's somewhere between the sizes of a green or English pea and a chickpea. You're not trying to create a barrier between the two metal plates, which conduct heat better than the paste ever could. The point of the paste is to fill in the microscopic air pockets that exist because the metal plates cannot be perfectly smooth.
And make sure the cooler is mounted as tightly as it can be without bending the frame. Here again, you're trying to push the metal plates against each other as firmly as possible. You don't need a power tool to tighten the screws however, and in fact that could be harmful; just do it by hand.
In general, it's always best to run a test on cooling when you get a new PC as well as when you swap out parts or remove and remount a cooler. Prime95 is the usual standard, the small FFTs test. It's basically a power virus for the CPU that you can shut off whenever you want. A computer with proper CPU cooling should be able to run it indefinitely (or 20-30 minutes for testing) without shutting down.