My system dies if I try to play games

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antivenom
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My system dies if I try to play games

Post by antivenom » Wed Feb 25, 2009 5:53 am

It's not so much of a silencing question but I know some of the readers of this forum have extensive knowledge with computers so I thought I'd ask here.

Basically, this started happening a couple of months ago but after a while, it seemed to just resolve itself but it's back again and as soon as I attempt to play any games, my computer completely powers down.

I'm not shown any BSOD or anything, it's just like somebody has unplugged my PC. Has anybody experience this sort of problem before? If so, some help would be brilliant because I have no ideas. Thanks.

P.S. My full spec is in my sig.

NeoteriX
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Post by NeoteriX » Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:15 am

It might be that your computer is BSODing but that you have it configured to restart/powerdown upon a crash. You can disable that by right clicking on My Computer > Properties; going to the Advanced tab; Startup and Recovery Settings; and uncheck Automatically restart.

If it's a BSOD hopefully next time you can capture the information in it.

Trav1s
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Post by Trav1s » Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:20 am

My initial reaction is your power supply but not positive.

SebRad
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Post by SebRad » Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:06 am

First thing if you haven't already is return everything to std clock speeds or less (inc video card and RAM timings.)
That said a complete power-off is indicative of a PSU problem or possible overheating. Other likely candidates are Motherboard and video card.

Can or have you monitored temps of CPU and GPU during gaming? (Speedfan and GPU-Z will record temps in a graph you can look at after quiting a game, unless you have a second screen you can put them on to look at while gaming)
Does turning the fan speeds up all round help?
You list two HDDs, run with just the XP one then just the Windows 7 one (presuming you can game on Windows 7?) and see if the same.

How does the system react to a CPU only stress, eg Orthos or OCCT?
How about a mostly GPU intensive one, eg furmark?
How do CPU & GPU temps react to the above?

Can you beg/borrow/steal another PSU or video card to test with?
Hope some of this helps, Seb

angelkiller
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Post by angelkiller » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:26 pm

I had a similar issue. Whenever I loaded any type of 3D app, my system would crash. Turned out to be a PSU issue.

protellect
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Post by protellect » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:46 pm

Sounds like a PSU issue to me, at first glance.

kittle
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Post by kittle » Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:59 pm

so when yu say "its just like somebody has unplugged my PC" - the comptuer shuts OFF whenever you try to play games?

It doesnt reboot.. but shuts down, and you have to press the power button to get it to come back?

Now think back to "a couple of months ago" ... did you have any severe weather? or a power outage? Even for a short time -- even if your PC was off at the time.
If so - I would go get a new PSU and a new surge protector right away.

If the PC restarts itself, then you will need to go into windows and shut off the 'automaticly reboot on error' option.

antivenom
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Post by antivenom » Thu Feb 26, 2009 1:24 am

Well... I disabled automatic restart but the same still happened, my computer just shut down, no BSOD, nothing.

But because several people have mentioned it might be a memory fault, I thought I'd test my memory by only installing one at a time. But during this process, I jiggled a few power connectors to my motherboard and graphics card and everything seems to be working fine now :?

I would test my system with spare parts to see what is actually causing the problem but I have no spare parts so I'm just going to be happy it's working now, thanks for your input guys! :)

protellect
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Post by protellect » Thu Feb 26, 2009 7:57 am

systems administrator mantra: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Nick Geraedts
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Post by Nick Geraedts » Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:41 am

antivenom wrote:But because several people have mentioned it might be a memory fault, I thought I'd test my memory by only installing one at a time. But during this process, I jiggled a few power connectors to my motherboard and graphics card and everything seems to be working fine now :?
Just from seeing this happen a number of times, it's a good time to remind people to disconnect cables from the plugs, and not the cables. I've seen power cables yanked on hard enough to get the crimped heads pulled out of the plastic.

Glad to hear things are working again. :)

antivenom
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Post by antivenom » Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:09 am

Nick Geraedts wrote:
antivenom wrote:But because several people have mentioned it might be a memory fault, I thought I'd test my memory by only installing one at a time. But during this process, I jiggled a few power connectors to my motherboard and graphics card and everything seems to be working fine now :?
Just from seeing this happen a number of times, it's a good time to remind people to disconnect cables from the plugs, and not the cables. I've seen power cables yanked on hard enough to get the crimped heads pulled out of the plastic.

Glad to hear things are working again. :)
Thanks Nick, I've always been worried about doing exactly that because it has happened to me before, but the power connectors to the motherboard and graphics card require your to press on the little latch thing anyway, making it impossible to yank them by the cable.

Nick Geraedts
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Post by Nick Geraedts » Fri Feb 27, 2009 8:17 am

antivenom wrote:Thanks Nick, I've always been worried about doing exactly that because it has happened to me before, but the power connectors to the motherboard and graphics card require your to press on the little latch thing anyway, making it impossible to yank them by the cable.
That's what you'd think..... ;)

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