Cooling Help Needed Please??

Hi- My computer just shutdown out of nowhere. When I turned it back on I received this message: The cpu was previously shutdown due a thermal event (overheating).

I have the XP Professional Operating system. I'm not a licensed technician but is currently taking an A+ class. Is this something that I can fix myself? The warranty on this computer is already expired. Thanks - All suggestions are welcome.

Carefully open up the case and vaccuum all the dust out of there. Make sure you have the air intake vents cleaned up thoroughly and get all the dirt off the heatsink.

Then make sure the fans all are actually working.

If a case fan is not working it's a $5-$10 part. (Or $20 if you insist on pretty LED lights). Make sure the heatsink fan is working too. That might cost a bit more to replace if it's not and can be a little tricky to replace (if you never did this you might want to recruit a friend who has built a computer).

Simply cleaning it and getting the air flowing again can make a huge difference.

I Hate to sound stupid, but i don't have a vaccuum-can i use something else-like a cloth maybe? or how about a can of compressed air?

Cans of compressed air typically work better [in my experience], but you're likely to make a little mess of the surrounding area depending on how bad it is. There's no problem in using compressed air instead of a vacuum.

Yeah compressed air is fine but it can make a mess. Try to make sure you're blasting the dust out of the case, not onto other parts.

Now that I have cleaned out the dust-there wasn't really much in there, I turn back on the computer and nothing happens, the pentium 4 screen flashed for a moment then went blank. The light is on the monitor and keyboard, as well as the power light on the tower.

Is the heatsink and fan mounted properly on the processor? I remember I kept lugging my tower around to different places and all the shaking loosened the latch on my heatsink that attaches to my mobo. Even though it was only loose a little bit, it would show the same symptoms.