[Octavious]

Really need some thoughts on this.. I'm getting ready to play a little comp between friendds but I need to get this sorted out...

Compter works fine under normal uses. When I play video games, it shuts off (i.e. Rise of Nations, Madden). At first it allowed me to play for awhile and then it would just shut off, as if someone pulled the plug. Then the time got shorter and shorter. So, I took off my heat sink and cleaned the dust off of it and replaced it. Not much of an impact. I took a box fan and put up next to my case (with the sides off) and that seemed to solve the problem. That has worked for about a month but now, today, that no longer works. It shut down now 3 minutes into the game. I'm not sure if it is the video card, CPU, or power supply, or ??? I just installed Speedfan 4.31 but I haven't a clue of what values should be troubling.

thoughts?

Happy Holidays!

 

[bonk]

Howdy,

Did you re-new the thermal paste on the heat sink??

 

[Octavious]

No I did not

 

[schusterjo]

Overheating

Description

When your CPU overheats, it will usually cause your computer to reboot. Video card overheating causes artifacts to appear on your screen, and usually wont cause reboots.

Diagnostic

Enter BIOS upon powering on your computer. Most BIOs have a hardware monitor. Use this to check your temperatures and fan speeds.

There is also hardware monitoring software that can check your temperatures from Windows. Your hardware monitoring software should have come with your motherboard. If you have no monitoring software, you can go to www.cpuid.com and get PC Wizard. PC Wizard is an easy to use program that will let you know what kind of temperatures you have, and what your fan speeds are at.

Causes

CPU overheating is usually caused by a failing CPU fan or improperly applied thermal paste. Fortunately, these 2 causes are easy to fix. If the CPU fan is dead, buy a new one and install it. If the thermal paste is improperly applied, remove the old paste off and apply new paste.

Another method is to take a house fan and open the case blowing the fan on high into the case.
if this helps we know its heat.
Goto radio shack buy a can of PCB cleaner (printed circuit board) unplug computer for an hour, open case spray everything starting from top working down to the bottom make sure you get the cpu heatsink and video card really goods.

Power Supply (PSU) Problems

Description

It is important to have a functioning, proper size of PSU for your computer. Having an underpowered or failing PSU is often the cause for random reboots. To get an estimate of how powerful a PSU, use this PSU calculator and add about 50W to the minimum power the calculator gives you.

Diagnostic

The easiest and best way to diagnose a faulty PSU is to swap it with another one that you know is in good working order.

Flowchart for ATX Power Supply Repair
Causes

PSUs just die after a while.

RAM

Description

Faulty RAM and RAM slots can cause random errors/reboots.

Diagnostic

The best way to determine if RAM is your problem is to run your computer with one stick at a time, and see if the problem occurs for either stick. This obviously doesn't apply if you only have one stick to begin with Also, try the RAM in different slots. The actual slots might be causing RAM-failing like problems. The next step is to run memtest86 to determine if you have faulty RAM.

Drivers
Visit the manufactures website and download the latest drivers for your hardware.

Viruses/malware/Trojans
Ad-Aware SE Personal

SpywareBlaster 3.5.1

Spybot - Search & Destroy

CwShredder

AVG Anti-Spyware
Download all ,update boot into safe mode

With some computers if you press and hold a key as the computer is booting you will get a stuck key message. If this occurs, instead of pressing and holding the "F8 key", tap the "F8 key" continuously until you get the startup menu.

Scan the computer,

Boot backup into Normal mode, download
CodeStuff Starter manage your startup programs

Disable all startup programs that you "do not" need running at startup.

A guide to hep keep a smooth system.
Maintain your system with Windows XP

 

[bonk]

For it to shutdown usually is heat ......I would clean your heatsink and re-new the thermal paste.....if the heat transfer is not taking place then when the CPU gets to hot it will shutdown the PC.

Arctic Silver 5 is very good thermal paste

Not likely your Video card that would do that

Powersupply would most likely affect the PC when doing anything.

 

[Octavious]

Wow, is that a bot! Thanks for the info. I guess I will run toe the store and get a power supply ~400 and some thermal paste. System doesn't reboot it just shuts off. And because it only happens when playing games, not when ripping/burning a DVD or other stuff like that I thought it must be a video card issue ...

???

 

[Octavious]

For it to shutdown usually is heat ......I would clean your heatsink and re-new the thermal paste.....if the heat transfer is not taking place then when the CPU gets to hot it will shutdown the PC.

Arctic Silver 5 is very good thermal paste

Not likely your Video card that would do that

Powersupply would most likely affect the PC when doing anything.

Thanks Bonk. So your saying not power supply but only thermal paste ?? Really? Let me know your final thoughts before I leave here shortly. Thanks

 

[bonk]

I would start with the Thermal paste but clean you heatsink with compressed air first......

Try playing the game on lower settings in the game and see if it lasts longer before shutdown.

Makesure the inside of the PC is clean out of dust.

I don't think it is a video card issue or power supply but when you have cleanout the PC of dust and re newed the thermal paste we will see.


PS. Does the Video Card have a fan or not?

 

[Octavious]

I would start with the Thermal paste but clean you heatsink with compressed air first......

Try playing the game on lower settings in the game and see if it lasts longer before shutdown.

Makesure the inside of the PC is clean out of dust.

I don't think it is a video card issue or power supply but when you have cleanout the PC of dust and re newed the thermal paste we will see.

PS. Does the Video Card have a fan or not?

I'm leaving now. I'll be back and let you know what happened in an hour. I ran a little test. I played a dvd while monitoring the temperature with SpeedFan- no real changes. I then started up Madden without my BOX fan running and poof! the system went out before I got through the whole EASports Intro (~ 1min). So, I really don't think it is a overheating issue, if this Speedfan program works right. the highest temp reading is at 50C before turing on Madden, once Mdden came on I couldn't see SPeedFan anymore. I guess the CPU temp could have spiked that quickly if the heat sink isn't in proper contact, or? Anyways, I'm out to pick up the thermal paste. Let me know any additional thoughts

Thanks all!

 

[schusterjo]

To me it sounds like a bad PS or video card. Heat is an easy thing to troubleshoot. Take a house fan open the case and blow on high into the computer. If it helps you know its heat. If not then we know to look at something else. Update drivers then I would look at that PS. What size of PS do you have? how old is it?

 

[Octavious]

Well...

I bought the silver paste and a can of compressed air and went to work. I cleaned out the power supply, mobo, and all else. Then I applied silver paste under the heat sinks and BAMMMM!!
That seems to have solved the problem. I tested out a couple of minutes of Madden and it worked fine and after I looked at the Speedfan program and the CPU's were around 45C. I'm really surprised about this because a during the summer I cleaned out the heat sinks and then put htem back but no silver paste and that didn't really help then.

I'll write back if there is a change but this seems to have solved the problem. I will see if this holds after I play for awhile. I'm considering getting a new ps becuz I think it is working at capacity. It is a 350W ps. Hey, thanks for those who chimed in to help me on this issue. Much thanks!!!

 

[bonk]

Good to hear....see how it runs, if you still have problems then post back as you might had more than one problem causing this issue.

 

[Octavious]

Not the end...

The computer shut down after 5 minutes of playing Madden. I put my box fan up to the side of the computer and it was fine. I've just gone out to purchase a 400W power supply. I will install it after I run some errands today. Any other words of advice. If it isn't the ps, then I guess it must be the video card, or? BTW, I have a Abit IS7 mobo.

My current ps is a 350W

 

[bonk]

If not the powersupply then the next in line would be the Video Card.....does the Video card have a fan on it and if it does is it spinning...

 

[Octavious]

no fan on video card

 

[schusterjo]

Download that program I listed above in that long post to monitor you temps.
Post here the normal temps. then play a game till it crashes reboot and get the temps and post them here as well.

This will allow us to know if its heat.

You get a new PS?

 

[Octavious]

I changed out the power supply and got a 400W. I played for two hours and no problems. Not really sure what was happening but could only guess that the power supply was overheating or ...

If you read the posts that I've made, I'm sure a savy person could postulate pretty well what transpired here. I would love to hear anyway.

thanks for all the input!

 

[bonk]

You could have had multiple problems.......power-supply and heat transfer on your CPU....

and fixing one problem gave you more time before the other problem kicked in


Just a thought

 

[Clumbsy_Mage]

To properly monitor your temperatures download a dedicated program to stressing your CPU.

SP2004 can be used for this, select the blend setting and hit start, then monitor your temperatures with SpeedFan.

Ideally I'd try to find another program to monitor your temps as I find SpeedFan not to be very accurate, but with your dated processor I wouldn't know what to recommend.