Thanks for the additional suggestions, guys!
Quote from mgookin:
This flickering event which caused you to reboot, has it happened before?
Hi mgookin:
The netflix movie flickering... well, when I played a movie, I got the audio tracks but the images were mostly blanks (black) some some color blocks here and there.
I played different movies on the same box, and got similar problems. I played the same movie on a different computer, and it worked fine. So the problem is not with the Netflix content but with that particular computer, at that particular moment.
Yesterday I previewed the situation with opening the side panel. Both chasis fans are working. The CPU heat sink fan is also working. I have been using the Intel-provided heatsink with the CPU chip. There was no thermal glue involved. All fans are dusty, as well as the grills on the chasis. I have bought a more heavy-duty CPU cooler. This will be a weekend maintenance cleanup project, along with installing the new CPYU cooler, and see how that goes.
These cleaning works are like restoring a vintage car. You need to have a lot of patience, and be willing to spend a little time, and not afraid to get your hands dirty. I have an old toothbrush. Will dust off most of the dust with it the best I can before blasting things with compressed air.
Best to do this cleanup work while watching a mindless comedy movie on Neflix.

Yeah, have already moved the Bose USB to another box.