Computer keeps shutting down when playing games. Can anyone help?

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Gigabyte Computer keeps shutting down when playing games. Can anyone help?

I just put together a new system and everything seemed to be working great, that is, until I started playing a few games. Everytime I launch Crysis or Wow (the only two I have reinstalled so far), my computer just shuts down. It doesn't shut down immediately upon starting, but only after it's been in the game for a couple minutes. After it shuts down, I have to either unplug the cord from the power supply or unplug it directly from the motherboard.

I have a Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2h, AMD X2 6000, GeForce 88000GTX, 4GB Crucial Memory, 450 Watt Power Supply.

I'm posting this under the Gigabyte motherboard section because it seems like a mb issue to me. I thought the CPU might be overheating, so I took off the heat sink, and reapplied the thermal compound. After that, I checked to see if the CPU is overheating and it seems okay. I've installed all the latest drivers for the video card.

Has anyone had a similar problem with this motherboard? Any suggestions?

Also, can anyone direct me to a resource how to fix the Windows XP and 3GB memory limitation?

THANKS!

Reply to maddoxx63

What brand power supply do you have and how many amps on the 12v rails? 450 watts seems low! I bet my bottom dollar that you do not have enough amps on the 12v rails causing your power supply to overwork itself then reach a temperature that causes it to shutdown. You need to meet the minumum power requirements which are 30 Amps on the 12v rails.

The fact that you have to unplug your power supply tells me its the PSU, because after a power failure that is what one must do. Let me guess that you have no problems surfing the internet and this only happens when you stress your system. My Antec Neo 480 watt PSU could only manage 32 Amps on the 12v rails.

That 8800GTX puts out a huge amount of heat, your PC case might not be upto getting all that heat out. In the summer my system would do exactly what your system is doing to you, shutting down. Since then I have upgraded my PC case, it never happenned again. It would also help us if you were to include your PC case and memory timings.

Message edited by systemlord on 12-24-2007 at 12:09:18 PM

------------------------------ WC--> Intel C2D E6600 @ 3.6GHz * Asus P5E X38 * 2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracers @800MHz 2.0v * WC--> EVGA Geforce GTX 480 @ 905MHz Core|1810MHz Shader|4400MHz Memory * Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD * X-Fi Fatality Pro * Enermax 720W PSU * Silverstone TJ09 case *
Reply to systemlord

Don't cheap out on the most important part: psu:

http://www.tomswiki.com/page/Tiere [...] ngs?t=anon

Reply to akhilles

I have the same issue with my machine

CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - 'Conroe' Dual Core Processor - 2.40GHz, 64-Bit, 1066FSB, 4MB Cache, VT, LGA775
RAM Team Xtreem 4-4-4 PC2-6400 MICRON 2GB DDR2
PSU Hiper Type M 580W EPS Active PFC PSU ATX2.2/BTX 4xSATA, 8x Component Connectors, 1xPCIe
VGA XFX 520MHz 7900GT 256MB VIVO XTREME Edition NVIDIA GeForce PCIe - Dual DVI
HDD WD4000YR RE2 400GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive - 8.7ms, 16MB Cache, Western Digital Caviar
MOBO Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 i965 Motherboard
CASE Antec P180 "Performance One" BLACK Mid Tower Case

I have 580 Watts though, and not much that would take juice (old pc).

When I run the little CPU-Z diagnostic tool, my CPU is clocked at ~1596.1 Mhz, but (very) occasionally peaks at ~2400. Just wondering if that's normal or related to my problem.

Would you still advise that a PSU is the problem?

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to evillettuce

evillettuce wrote :

I have the same issue with my machine

When I run the little CPU-Z diagnostic tool, my CPU is clocked at ~1596.1 Mhz, but (very) occasionally peaks at ~2400. Just wondering if that's normal or related to my problem.

Would you still advise that a PSU is the problem?

Get a better PSU. Again: http://www.tomswiki.com/page/Tiered+PSU+Listings

As far as your CPU speed problem, if you do not have SpeedStep turned off in your BIOS, that's normal.

Reply to jsc

Tigerdirect has an ultra 500w cable select power supply for $29.95 plus shipping. It has a lifetime warranty if you register it online. But it's not a top rated ps. You have to decide if it's worth gambling on.

Reply to o1die

Your PSU isn't up to the job - Spend the $100 it takes to buy a good one.

------------------------------ Trying to make up his mind whether the current situation is due to an overabundance of high quality pharmaceuticals freely available on the Internet. ...or not enough of them.
Reply to Scotteq

to OP, it seems psu issue as all the other's mentioned.

Fabulous.

So a 750w SilverStone PSU would suffice?

At least then my old PSU can make a nice door-stop and/or bludgeon.

Message edited by evillettuce on 12-24-2007 at 01:58:44 PM

Reply to evillettuce

I think the main point is not to go by wattage alone. You'll be safer with seasonic, corsair, pc power and cooling, and my budget choices: antec and enermax. Brands matter almost as much as the wattage rating for longetivity. Corsair and seasonic have excellent warranties. And 600w in one of these brands should be fine.

Reply to o1die

evillettuce wrote :

No, It's very unlikely to be a PSU problem.

#1) Your PSU is much more powerful.
#2) Your System Draws much less power.
#3) The Speed Fluctuation is normal. It's called SpeedStep. The CPU only goes to full speed when needed.
Not many things need that much power.

Check for new video drivers. Does it happen in all games or some games. If it happens in certain games, it could be game bug related as well.

Message edited by zenmaster on 12-24-2007 at 04:14:28 PM

Reply to zenmaster

Yeah I'd assumed #1 and #2.

#3 is good to know. Another PC I tested apparently doesn't have SpeedStep because it wasn't fluctuating at all.

The only examples I can provide for this problem are Hellgate: London, Loki, Soldier of Fortune 3, World in Conflict, Crysis and UT2004. UT2004 didn't originally crash when I first got this total waste of money a year ago so it's pretty good news that it does now.

All the games work fine on the other computer mentioned above. Both PCs are running XP and have the same video drivers (which are the most recent as of the time of this post). The other machine has a 7950GTX. So neither machine is particularly DX10 friendly.

Maybe my video is too pathetic to run these games.

Message edited by evillettuce on 12-25-2007 at 02:12:04 PM

Reply to evillettuce

I have a different prob(lets not get into it).As of now i dont have a graphic card, but i plan to get an 8800GT or ati 3850 and i own a UMAX 450W psu.My config is:E4300 c2d+g965ryck mobo+1gbram.Will i have problems?? On my battery its written:+12V:25amps and 3.3V:32amps(in response to the guy who put his bottom dollor on psu problem )
Help plz!!

Reply to wrazor

For fun,

I discovered that during game play my GPU would cause the computer to die when it hit about 76 degrees celsius.

I don't suppose anyone knows a remedy for that? Like a good brand for cooler and a type of cooler I should use. The GPU is about 50 degrees celsius when idle too, but then it's about 35-40 degrees in the room anyway. Australia is too damn hot.

Clearly I have no idea whether this is hot or not. I had always assumed they were meant to run at somewhere around 50 degrees?

Message edited by evillettuce on 12-30-2007 at 12:23:27 PM

Reply to evillettuce

50C idle is hot. Look to Thermalright for a good GPU cooler. Also case air flow. Try pointing a good house fan into the case with the side open, if it helps buy a new case or add all the fans you can to the case.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Conumdrum

Conumdrum wrote :

50C is not considered hot for a GPU, 60C is good, 70C is warm, 80C is hot but 90-100C is very hot! Operating temps for an 8800GTX is 60-80C and for the 8800GT those suckers run a little hotter because the single slot cooler is horrible.

Huge number of problems/fixes here:
http://www.gamingnewslink.com/2007 [...] omment-235
Do you have any other problems? Reboots during installs, occasional blue screens? If you have never done it since starting up the system, all GB MOBOs need, at least once, to have the "Load Optimized Defaults" BIOS function executed - 'reads' all the hardware (especially the memory), and sets all the myriad 'auto' parameters in the BIOS to allow proper operation...

Reply to bilbat

I have the same problem, i did everything above suggested, none helped.
I even bought a new graphic card, and the same thing happend.
I found one thing that is the same, with our computers...
It's the motherboard, all gigabyte mobo's...
When i unplug my graph card, and leave my intergrated graph to do all the work, my comp works like a charm...
So i thout it was the graph problem...
Sorry for bad English.
My next step is ether the psu, or the motherboard....
I really hope it's the psu...

Reply to AlexandarPolimac

Try to describe this "static kind of noise" a little more: is it crackly, like hearing a spark; white noise, like a radio with no channel tuned; mechanical sounding at all, like maybe a fan blade ticking against something? In general, how long has it been since you cleaned inside the thing. I service machines a bit, and it's astonishing the stuff, and the amount of general buit-up crud I find inside... Recently, I took a machine out of someone's basement to fix a really servere virus infection - inside I found roughly three cubic inches of just crud, a dead, desicated sowbug the size of my index fingernail, and the largest black ant I had ever seen in my life! Raises hell with the cooling, causes high-impedance shorts, can be all kinds of grief...

------------------------------ An optimist sees a glass half full; a pessimist, a glass half empty; an engineer sees a glass that's twice as large as required...
Reply to bilbat