I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask for this, but here we go:
I've had this current system for a little more than a year:
- Asus P7P55D-E
- Intel Core i5 760 (no overclock at all!) - stock cooler
- 2xKingston 2Gb DDR3-1600 (no overclocking, running at 1333MHz)
- Geforce GTX460 1GB
My system was working perfectly for quite a while. Suddenly, like in a week, my proccessor started overheating.
While in the BIOS configuration, no OS even opened that whole day, I got an idle of nearly 90C in about 30 seconds. Now that is obviously wrong. I could see the temperature display rising 1C every second. My CPU cooler fan is running constantly at about 2000 RPM (says the BIOS config).
Note that I've never even opened my case since I first bought this computer (I got it assembled at the store). It started without any hardware modification.
Well not until yesterday. I've opened my case, took the cooler off and cleaned it a bit (was full of dust/dirt). I've left the thermal grease there because I don't have any replacement right now.
And now to make things worse, my processor (seems like) is making a strange noise (have to really pay attention, it's very low volume) while I'm typing/scrolling with the mouse. The sound it makes is like the one that comes from those old iPods when you are scrolling the circle thing to mess with the volume. In other words, it's like every segment of the scroll wheel/keyboard key makes a very small beep. Together they sound like squeaking or something.
What would you recommend me to do? I am already ordering some thermal grease (Arctic Silver 5) just in case. I'm starting to get worried my processor is failing. Could that be it?