Worried about PC temperatures

I recently played in the Overwatch beta, where I experienced a bit of stuttering after some time, which was then followed by a crash. Afterwards, I checked for my PC's temperature, and noticed it got really hot, making me think it possibly overheated. Since then, I've been keeping a closer look on the temperature when doing things. Everything is fine, until I start playing a game on it again. Temperatures go up way high, and I'm getting a bit worried about this. Just earlier I played like 30 minutes of another game that shouldn't be too demanding for my system, but got temperatures that looked pretty high to me. After alt-tabbing out to take a screenshot of this (which it actually didn't save, so I can't show it) and then wanting to return to the game, the screen stayed black and froze, forcing me to restart my PC. Anyway, retried again, getting these results after like 15 minutes of playing that same game:



Is my PC close to dying (lol)? I've been using it pretty intensively for... 4 or 5 years now, but I've really never had huge issues with it up to now (except with having mediocre performance playing certain games).
Advice? Suggestions?

When was the last time you opened it up and cleaned the inside ?
This would be the first thing I would do.

Yeah, that's been a while. I'll try that later today and post my results afterwards.

Milennin said:

Yeah, that's been a while. I'll try that later today and post my results afterwards.

If have not done it before or have any question's at all while you are doing it, ask us.

Thanks, I will. :) I'm not hugely experienced with dealing with the insides of my PC, but hopefully should be fine. I'm mainly just looking to get rid of any dust that's in there, right?

Milennin said:

Thanks, I will. :) I'm not hugely experienced with dealing with the insides of my PC, but hopefully should be fine. I'm mainly just looking to get rid of any dust that's in there, right?

Be sure to turn off the power supply switch on the back of the computer is you have one or remove the power cord from the wall.
Touch the outside of the case to dissipate any static electricity before you reach in.

Yes, check any area where there is air intake, the CPU fan and heat sink's, all cooling fan's also.
Be sure the exhaust fan is clean also.
You can use q-tip's if you have them and run a vacuum with a hose in reverse to blow things clean.
A small artist brush might be handy or something similar.

badrobot said:

4-5 years is long enough to start thinking about re-pasting the cooler. You probably need a fresh thermal paste, too.

Good idea if the OP is up to it.
We will need an exact make and model number to look at the manual for it
and walk him thru it if need be.

I just cleaned the inside of my PC, which happened to be pretty dusty, but after putting it back on and trying to play a game again, I don't really notice much difference in the temperatures. I've never re-pasted the cooler, and mine is different from the one in the video. It's an AMD, but I'm not sure how to check for the model number of it.