Gaming Crashes

[swatcatpettus]

Whatup my specs are in my sig, heres my problem.

As of yesterday, everytime I try to run a demanding game, (half life 1 AND 2, battlefield 2) after about 5 minutes, my computer simply shuts down. Everything is plugged in firmly, all my fans are on, nothing is being overclocked. My CPU performs normally, and the temperature on my graphics card never reaches above 70 C at the core. Can someone tell me WTF is goin on?

 

[Endrithius]

My best guesses are

1. Bad/Insufficient PSU
2. Ram problems.

Explinations:

1. Bad/Insufficient PSU - if your PSU is not able to push enough power, your machine will simply shut down. It has happened ot me a couple of times. I need to buy a new Power Supply - but unforunately - the restoration of my 87 300zx Turbo comes first

2. Ram problems - if you have corrupt ram - or possibly have cooked it during an unfortunate overclocking incident (my like myself) - is it possible that your simply losing enough data in the memory to cause a fatal system failure and it just shuts down.

Solutions:

1. Bad/Insufficient PSU - if you are POSITIVE it's not your RAM - buy a new PSU - remember, today's hardware is power hungry. Buy at LEAST a 500 Watt PSU with no less than a combined 38 Amps on the +12V rails (can be split up amonst mulltiple rails).

2. Ram problems - simply replace it - or - if you have 2 sticks (i.e. 2x512 MB) try removing one - then the other - if both have the same problem - its more then likely that you have done one of 2 things. Cooked both sticks - or there is no problem with your RAM. Unfortunately - at this point - all you can do is go buy new RAM and if it still doesn't fix the problem - just take it back. Make sure you buy it local - that way an in-store return is available to you for a quick refund - since your still technically troubleshooting.

 

[Endrithius]

Also - forgot to tell you - your PSU - even though it is a 600W PSU - from what I can remember - has an extremely LOW amount of amperage on the 12V rail. It could just be a bad PSU too

 

[kill4killin]

The PSU could be the problem but its less likely then the RAM.

The easiest way to deduce what is causing your problem is to first, update your BIOS and that will make sure its up to date and will make sure everything is back at default. After that, reboot and see if it still happens. If that does not fix it, get memtest86, burn it to a CD, put it on a floppy or jump drive. Boot into memtest and then run that on test 5. If it doesnt show up with any errors for a few passes, then reboot and start memtest again, but do not specify which test to use, let it run through all the tests a few times. This is long though so it will take a while. If still nothing shows up, then you can be pretty certain that it is your PSU and then go about replacing it. If something does show up during memtest (such as errors) then buy new RAM.