WHY??? does my brother's comp restart

It sounds like his vid card is over heating. It could also be a lack of stable power to the GPU. What vid card does he have? You may want to run memtest just to eliminate memory as a problem.

that's an interesting point I did think it was the vid card but you may be right can someone confirm what happens usually if a vid card dies

There are a lot of reasons this could be happening:

1. Faulty power supply.
2. Too high of load on a cheap power supply.
3. Overheating CPU (dust, heatsink not seated properly, overclock, poor case ventilation).
4. Faulty RAM.
5. Loose power connectors (CPU power, motherboard power).
6. Faulty motherboard (short, damaged capacitor, etc).
7. Faulty CPU (bent pin, overclock, etc).
8. Virus/spyware/malware.

Best if you could post the specs of your PSU. Check if the CPU temps are high, also try blowing out any dust in the heatsink. What sort of ventilation/fans are you using? Did you overclock? Double-check your power connections and check for damaged components and shorts. Do a virus/spyware scan. Test your RAM with Memtest86+

I think it is likely the powersupply. They make power supply testers for $20, but you could also test using a multimeter. Or if its still under warranty, RMA.

1. Virus/ Spyware
2. Over heating CPU/GPU
3. Bad PSU
4. Corrupt data/ Bad HDD

I personaly think that this is more related to #4 listed above. I had this happen to me when i was playing CoD2 and Halo CE on a water coold rig.

ok I'm a noob and so is he so we will just copy what it says on the box
(apparently it was a cheapy) It says: "Features: separate 12 v rail supply to mainboard and drives a couple of things saying it works with modern Mobos and it says Universal Wide Range input of 95 250 VAC (which sounds like bull**** to me) oh yeah and it is also made by atrix (whoever they are)

oh and if you do think it is the PSU can u suggest an alternative (sorry to keep thinking of more stuff)
thnx a lot btw

i'll tell my brother because he can probably afford a new PSU

Right my brother has just informed me that when it crashes the screen locks up for a few seconds before it restarts. Does this fit with graphics card overheating? Bearing in mind he still has the factory cooler on it etc so its possible it gets hotter than 86 degrees under extreme load (the image in ati tools didnt look that taxing)

80 plus all the way.

Seasonic is manufacturing Antec's earthwatts PSUs

you could download and burn "ultimate boot CD"
run memtest, that should remove ram as the problem if it passes.
they also have HDD diagnostic tools from the manufacturers
also try cpu burn-in and see if you can activate the thermal trip on to processor, {if not and no freezy should be hoecake}
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

---
second link sucks woops

sorry I must of skimmed it quickly {edited} I've been told I'm a dolt {darn, my bad} I'll try not to let it happen again, {I swear I read VA as in V*A=W}
http://www.atrixlts.com/Atrix/Prod [...] egoryID=18
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] name=ATRIX

they use that "Universal Wide Range input of 95 250 VAC" BS on all their PSUs
they have cheap capacitors, probably blew
hopefully your Motherboard is OK
get some long rubber gloves {safety goggles?} and {let it the PSU cool down for a day} and open it up a you'll might see a blown capacitor it looks like rust colored xbox logo.
to quote Newegg customer reviews
"you get what you paid for"

maybe the power it's giving off is to funky for the video card, I'll do some surfing
oh and Belinda, it is only the cheap PSUs that we are concerned with; and this Atrix PSU seems to have an average life of one year.

anyways are the Graphics Drivers up to date, is your brother running vi$ta {DX10 game}

according to him it happens in other games as well (but only taxing ones) I only mentioned SUPCOM specifically because it is the only game that I play him at

I didn't see mention of this before, but is the computer overclocked? (I've been overclocking my computer, and I had one of my voltages too low, and may computer would restart after an hour of oblivion, but in nothing else, including memory, cpu, and video test run at the same time). If not then run mem test to make sure the RAM is good and running good voltage. Reset the Bios (usually with a jumper), and run orthos to stress the cpu and the ram. If nothing comes up with those test, then the card isn't getting enough power or is faulty.

I have the same problem, no idea how to solve it, but my power supply is a £60/$120 dollar one and according to several different reviews it should provide enough power to run two x1900 xtx in CF so i dont think its the problem (considering i only have one such card it should be more than enough power) but it still does exactly what your brothers does. (screen locks for a few secs then restart after around 45 minutes to 1hour of gameplay depending on the intensity of the game) I havent done any overclocking at all by the way and under load my cpu only hits 42 degrees so i dont think thats the problem either.

I wonder what the exorcism for a computer would be. Holy Alcohol is probably involved.

I was hoping for a shaman or a witch doctor,

now take thy "Holy Alcohol" and remove thy tainted evil (boxed with processor) cheaply made, probably bubble gum that was chewed by a demon, thermal compound.

and replace with thou superior product; just a dab, no more, no less (apple is wrong); along with thy better Heat-Sink and Fan!

{some people like the evil spirits, maybe thats why voodoopcs cost so much?}

get thy brother on to thy tom's hardware forums and lets us make short work of this demon

i have ordered a new heatsink for my graphics card, will post in a few days and tell you if it worked or not. If it doesnt im going to pour holy water in the dvd drive and see if that helps.

Stickmania, have you checked what voltage your ram is set at? If you have "hi-performance" ram it probably needs more voltage than default. And this issue won't show until the memory bus is stressed (even after being tested by memtest in some cases). All I know for sure is it's a lot easier to check your BIOS than buying a PSU, heatsink, etc.

Resets 40-80 minutes into the game?

How is he doing in the game at that point?

ever wondered if the cause of the reset is his finger hitting the button labelled "Reset"?

Just kidding, sounds like graphics card or psu. swap his card for yours, get him to play a skirmish, see if that helps.

Read this article

http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3034

it talks about theh 2GB barrier in 32 bit os and the case study was done using supreme commander. Maybe this is your problem. If you are hitting this, it would cause seemingly random restarts with no explaination. This is particularly revelavent if you are playing at higher resolutions

jedi940 sadly not cos my comp reboots it doesnt just crash to desktop like in the case in the article you posted a link for, and it happens in most games not just supreme commander. Its a damn annoying problem...

Check out the sound drivers. Disable all sound and see if the problem persists. If not, then look for updated sound drivers, or turn down any acceleration features in the driver.

fwiw, the Atrix PSUs on Newegg look like globs of wet doodoo. Even if not the problem in this specific case, buying a better one would be money well spent.

right i put a new cooler on my gfx card today, now is 73 degrees under load, 45 when idle (not much better than before but its now virtually silent, which is something at least)
Anyway is this now low enough to assume its not my gfx card overheating that is causing the problem?

I 2nd that suggestion

Hmmm, i want to try memtest but i'm not sure how to use it, as in will i have to make a disc or can i just run it off my desktop? (By the way thanks to everyone who has posted suggestions its much appreciated)

First you need to get the error message that is causing the restart... you need to disable Windows RESTART on BSOD.

In windows XP....

click Start > Control Panel > System > click advanced tab

Under Start Up and Recovery > Click settings

Under System failure > Uncheck Auto Restart.

Next time it BSOD's write down the error information and then google it.

If you don't do this you're just chasing your tail.