CPU Overheats when playing StarCraft

My CPU never overheats except when I play StarCraft for more than about 45 minutes. When it overheats, the computer totally freezes which I believe is a common reaction that AMD processors have to deal with excess heat. Looking at my temperature logs, it looks as though it gets up to about 93ºC then freezes. Anyone have any insight? Information below!

Processor:
AMD Phenom II X4
3.0 GHz True Quad-Core
8.0 MB Cache
Socket AM3
Average Temperature: 60ºC

Operating System:
Windows 7 Professional x64

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by oturansama

Try taking you fan off and see if there is a lot of dust between your fan and CPU.

My computer's fan kept making loud noises, speeding up, and slowing my system down a while back and when I took the fan off to look I swear I had like a centimeter of compacted dust sandwiched between the fan heat sink and the CPU. It is amazing how dust can build up like that.

...Starcraft though???

Is it when someone rushes you with 400 zerglings? or attacks with Carriers and interceptors? I just can't really see such an old game being that taxing on a modern computer. I had a few slowdowns with that game long ago when I played it, but they were mostly bandwidth/lag related.

It doesn't matter whether I'm actually playing a game or not, if StarCraft is open it does it. I noticed after making this post that while having Windows Media Player full-screened for an hour+ that it got into the upper-80's. My dual-core AMD never reaches 60ºC doing either of these tasks >.<

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

What if you run Starcraft from a CD image sitting on your hard disk, instead of using the CD drive?

It is running from an image! Also, I should state that when I bought this processor a year ago, it sat at about 40ºC so it has gotten progressively worse at keeping itself cool, but for some reason freaks out when I run StarCraft and full-screen WMP, possibly other full-screen applications as well: more testing is needed! I'm going to try and talk to AMD tomorrow (I work during their tech support hours except on Tuesdays).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

Reapply thermal compound to the CPU - some low quality compound can really degrade over time reducing effective heat transfer from die to sink.

Best thing is to combine this with your dust bunny hunt inside the system

Thanks for the input. Do you have any suggestions for thermal compound? After checking whether or not the CPU was being fed the proper voltage, AMD agreed to replace the processor.

I didn't install this myself, and I don't think I've ever removed a processor before. Does anyone have any tips, no-no's, or other guidelines to follow for me to remove this and send it to them, as well as advice for reinstalling the processor?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?