CPU on self built machine at 90 Degrees C ?!?!?!?!

I've built myself a machine that i was really happy about until I noticed it switches itself off after an hour or 2. I checked the CPU temp in the bios and from a fresh start its at 80 C. At about 95 it switches off.

I've tried changing the CPU fan and I've added 2 more fans to the case so it now has 3 fans. But no real change. The case is just a standard tower case. I'm thinking I need a liquid cooling system now to get the temp down, but is there a chance the motherboard or the cpu are faulty? I don't want to play about with it too much until i know why its going wrong, I'm worried i'll fry something. A friend of mine had a look at it and i'm wondering if he's tried overclocking it but i don't think he has. I've wouldn't even want to look at overclocking rght now.

Hope someone here can help me get an idea of whats going on in my pc.
This is the main spec.

proc: Athlon XP 3200
Motherboard: gigabyte GA-7N400V Pro2
Memory: 2 x 512 Gb
Graphics Card: gigabyte GV-N56X128D-P -fx5600xt

 

going to state the obvious but I have to ask.
Is your heat-sink on properly? Some people put the heat-sinks on the wrong way and it can cause the cpu to not transfer heat properly to the HSF. Do you have thermal paste on the HSF?

 

I don't mind answering the obvious, I appreciate any help

I have got thermal paste between the cpu and the heat sink, i put quite a bit cos someone told me that athlons need a bit more

i think the sink is on the right way round, the side that has to be clipped in is facing the back of the tower.

Are there any checks i can do on the machine to see if anythings not working properly?

 

On the cpu you need a thin layer of paste. I would take off the heatsink, clean off with rubbing alcohol (99%) and you should also notice the step in the heatsink, if it is installed in the wrong direction there will be no contact with chip which has already been mentioned from a other member.

 

Read this it will give you an idea as to how much thermal compound to use.
It's very hard to use such a small amount as instructed but less is better.
http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm
Den

 

Just a quick message to say thanks for the help guys.

I had made a mess of the thermal paste and the fan was the wrong way round. I can't believe i didn't destroy the cpu completely. I cleaned up the processor with alcohol and re-did the paste like you guys said and the temp. dropped from 90-odd degrees to 54, which is a great relief.

thanks again

 

don't feel so bad. I put a heatsink on backwards as well, luckily I caught it before I fired it up. Just got lazy. I always double check now. Glad everything worked out OK.......