Troubleshooting a shutdown

[Ringhal]

My new box is shutting down shortly after loading a video game - and no, my wife has not been tinkering with the box...

I can surf, do non-intensive stuff and leave it on for hours, but when I try to game, it turns itself off. I'm suspecting it may be a power supply, but it's less than a year old. Here's the build:

E8400 stock speed
Gigabyte P35 DSL
2x2gb GSkill DDR 2 800
MSI GTX 260 core 216 stock speed
Antec Earthwatts 500w
XP with sp2

I figured it wasn't the stock fan on the CPU since the shutdowns only happen with games, no matter how long the machine has been on. I'm not sure what else I should try before getting a new power supply. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[britonk]

When you say shutting down do you mean:

- Just turning off with no warning.
- Shutting itself down properly
- Suddenly restarting.?

 

[tiraides]

It may be the power supply. From the EVGA website:

What are the power requirements of an EVGA GTX 200 series graphics card?

GTX 260 models:
Minimum of a 500 Watt power supply
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 36 amps)
Two available 6 pin PCI-E power connectors

The EA500 has 34A combined on its 12V rails, so there's a good chance that it's struggling with the GTX 260.

A good yet cheap replacement power supply is the BFG Tech LS-550, which has 40A combined on its 12V rails.

 

[Ringhal]

When you say shutting down do you mean:

- Just turning off with no warning.

It just turns itself off. No shutdown screen, no blue screen. When I start it back up, it works fine - until I load another game. When I get home today, I'll try my old 9800gtx and a 512mb 4870 card. If those work fine, then I'll try a new power supply.

Thanks again