HW problem: 'puter freezes on or after high load

[Adriano Varoli Piazza]

Hello people, this isn't specifically a Linux problem (I've suffered
it installing Plan 9 and Windows XP, and also when looking at bios
parameters afterwards). Thing is, on or after some (but not all,
thanksfully) high CPU loads, the computer freezes completely. All
attempts to kill it, even from ssh, are vain. Pushing the Reset button
leaves the computer wedged, and I have to turn it off completely, wait
for a while and only then restart. I thought about overheating, but
the sensors I have don't show temperatures above 40ºC when the crashes
happen. Of course, the sensors could be shot, but they seem to work
normally otherwise. I'm using cool'n'quiet and the cpu scaling
support, so the PC runs normally at 1 GHz instead of the default 1.8.

The processor is an Athlon 64 2800+ with a troubled story: I changed
the heat sink for a less noisy one and in the process managed to (no
fault of mine, I swear) bend two of the processor's gold pins. I
managed to set them back, though. The crashes I'm experiencing didn't
start immediately after this happened, but more like a month or two
afterwards.

The mobo is a taiwanese MSI K8TM/K8MM series MS-6741 1.X M-ATX, and I
can't rule out the problems are mobo-related as opposed to
processor-related. I hope I don't have to change too many things
here...

Of course, I'm taking it to the tech support (out of warranty, of
course) but since it's holidays until wednesday here in Italy, I
suppose I've got nothing to lose by posting here first. Has anyone got
any advice?

--
Adriano Varoli Piazza
The Inside Out: http://moranar.com.ar
ICQ: 4410132
MSN: moranar at gmail.com