Computer advice...

[thatbloke]

Ok so lately in this hot weather my Computer has been acting up... Quite simply after longish (at least a couple of hours) of playing a game, it turns itself off. Now I know this is not a Windows BSOD, because I have the system set to not restart when this happens (so I can see the message).

Now I thought that it could perhaps be a cooling issue... so I whacked 2 more case fans into my system, but it has just reset itself again. This does not seem to have helped... I have the threshold in my BIOS set to shut the computer down should the CPU temperature get to 70 degrees... The past two time is has turned off I have instantly gone into the BIOS to see what it says my CPU temperature is and it's normally somewhere around 62-65 degrees, which does worry me a bit.

Of course, it could also be a power supply issue. I have what is now quite an old power supply, about 5-6 years old (one of only 2 things that came with my first computer that I still use ). It is rated at 400W I believe... I know this may decay over time which is why a possible problem could be emerging now... but having had no issues with it before... well you never know.

There is also a third possibility... that is that if I remember correctly, every time my system has simply shut itself down, I have been playing Heroes of Might and Magic V (not 100% on that one). I don't think it is the game, though, I think it is more likely to be the strain the game is putting on the system rather than something the game is doing, as if it was something the game is doing the system would BSOD and I would get an error message.

My spec:

Athlon XP 3400+ 64 bit processor.
1GB RAM.
128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Graphics card. (I have noticed that this is also getting quite hot... though there is no way I can actually check its temperature... is there?).
1 DVD burner, 1 CD-RW burner
2 IDE hard drives, 1x120GB, 1x40GB

Thoughts?

MY main question is: Do I try a new power supply or a new heatsink/fan, or both? If just one at a time, which first?

 

[Phryxus]

My computer had a similar problem a while back, although not as regularly.

Occasionally, without warning, it would just reboot as if i'd manually restarted. Now, it didn't cause any obvious damage, but not so long after that started happening the PSU fried itself whilst I was playing Guild Wars one night and as a result, I had to buy a new PSU. The one I had before was an Antec (I think) TrueBlu 400/450 watt PSU (can't remember exactly) and I replaced it with a cheapo slightly larger wattage one from my local Pc World.

Since then, I haven't had any more problems with random restarts - although I never did find a pattern in how the old one shut down. Your theory of a degrading power supply sounds quite likely, but you should probably ask someone with more technical know-how than I have before you make a final decision about what to replace.

 

[Nanor]

I had a problem the same as the two described above, my computer would just shut down and reboot without any bother. I found the problem was that there wasn't enough power going to my hard drive causing restarts. I simply turned off my CD-RW.

This may not be the same as your problem, but I hope it helps.

 

[elDiablo]

To everyone who has random reboots - make sure that you turn on the blue screen of death in XP. It may be that you have a driver or device conflict (the usual cause of crashes). To turn it back on (as its turned off by default in XP), right click "My Computer", and go to the properties. Under the "Advanced" tab click the "Settings" option under "Startup and Recovery". In this window, untick "Automically restart" under the "System Failure", and ensure that "Write an event to the system log" is ticked. Then, any messages (such as IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL, IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN, IRQ_NOT_EQUAL, IRQ_NOT_GREATER_THAN, or IRQ_NOT_GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUAL - the usual ones), make sure you write down EVERYTHING, and post it back up here.

If not BSoD is shown, its probably a hardware (or heat) problem.

Edit - The only other thing I can think that makes computer games go boom-restart is the lovely use of Starforce. Just checked, and HoM&MV officially dumped Starforce a while back, so its not that

 

[thatbloke]

Indeed. It seems that previous problems involved the power supply, So I will try a shiny new PSU first.

 

[elDiablo]

Instead of spending all this money in bits, thatbloke, you should get a nice shiny new PC, with a nice shiny 7900GTX!

 

[thatbloke]

Do you have one large amount of money to give me in one go so I don't have to upgrade it in bits???

 

[elDiablo]

It's called saving up

 

[thatbloke]

Right so I've whacked a 550W PSU in my PC and i'll see if that helps. On taking out the old one I noticed that my old one was just 250W!!! So I think that may have been the problem...

 

[Pestcontrol]

Hmm, 250 is indeed not much. It's probably so old it has a low rating on the +12v circuit too. Hope you fixed your problems with now.

Also, the old PSU would likely still be absolutely fine for running a more modest computer, say a lower end single core athlon, with midrange graphics and a single harddrive, provided it has the right connectors. I've ended up hacking a normal molex into a 4 pin square one once. That system still runs without problems.