Computer shuts down while playing games

[camophile]

Hi Everyone.. I will be the first to admit that I am not very experienced with hardware, and I hope you will be patient with me.

I recently decided to do my own semi-build (had the case, motherboard, CPU and PSU preassembled). Here are the specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo 8500 3.16ghz
4 GB Mushkin memory
Okia 550W ATX Power Supply w/ 6pin PCI-E
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI Express 2.0 x16

The issue I'm having is that when I'm playing a game (World of Warcraft and Second Life so far), the computer shuts down and restarts itself. Here's the weird thing -- when I first assembled the computer about a week and a half ago, I originally had the 6pin PCI-E from the PSU plugged directly into the video card. For some reason, this resulted in my computer shutting down within two minutes of playing WoW. I then decided to try switching some things around, and ended up using the PCI-E power plug that came with the card, and plugged it into another female plug inside. This seemed to have remedied the problem, as WoW hadn't shut down within a half hour of playing it. Yesterday, I was playing Second Life for probably about an hour and a half, and all of a sudden my computer shut down again. Talk about the agony of defeat!

Now, because of the nature of the problem, I'm seriously thinking that it is the PSU. I thought that maybe I could draw on some of your experience and see what you think before I go shell out some more money for another. Thanks in advance!

 

[chiller]

I think you may be right with the power supply, Okia - cannot say I have heard of them, thats why I am changing my colorit 550w power (cheap but been okay for 4 years) supply for a nice juicy Corsair 750w.

 

[pr2thej]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817162018

lol at the 1st comment...blew up after 2 months and he is buying another one

 

[Kraynor]

Pity it didn't take a few other parts with it, might have learned his lesson that way.
Either way, I always tell people to stick to reputable high quality PSUs. Tom's did an article a while back with several no-name PSUs pushing them to their rated limits, most of them blew up within a month, the rest followed shortly after (except I think there was 1 dark horse... can't remember exactly).

Cheapo PSUs run fine if you're at 30%-40% of their advertised 'maximum' load, but you're much better off going with a reputable one. While reputable ones can perform well beyond their rated wattages, cheaper PSUs are generally rated at the maximum they got out of it to make them appear more attractive. Efficiency usually isn't great on second-grade PSUs either so you'll wind up spending more in the long run thanks to electricity costs.

 

[Guest]

i found the Solution !!!!! Very Easy One!

it is the Bios SETUP! YES!
in section "PC Health" you will find option for temperature warning. this makes your pc shuts down instead of giving you a warning. Raise the warning temp or Disable this option.
that is it!!!

 

[Alpha388th]

I have a
AMD Athlon XP 2600+
2.5GB RAM
XP SP3
Sapphire HD 3850
Corsair TX650W PS
6 Fans blowing in
3 Fans blowing out
3 Hard Drives
1 cd burner
1 DVD reader

And when i play certain Games my Computer restarts Not sure why.... Any Ideas I tried looking in the Bios for the PC health and that was Disabled so that didnt help me out at all!

 

[jsc]

i found the Solution !!!!! Very Easy One!

it is the Bios SETUP! YES!
in section "PC Health" you will find option for temperature warning. this makes your pc shuts down instead of giving you a warning. Raise the warning temp or Disable this option.
that is it!!!

If his problem is caused by high CPU temperatures. If the restarting occurs only in games, most likely cause is inadequate power or possibly bad video drivers.

 

[Alpha388th]

Not sure but i had a 450 Watt PS and only one HD pluged in and the Video card and it would restart by its self when playing certain games and i had a SAPPHIRE Radeon X1650PRO 512MB Video Card.And have never had this problem with NVIDIA untill i changed over to ATI. So...... I sent the card back and got looked into Video Cards and found that maybe it was my power supply making the Computer restart. So i sent the Card back and got a SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 3850 512MB Video Card and also a 650 Watt PS with a 52Amp Rating on the 12V line. And long behold its still doing it. Tried updating the drivers to the newest ones but no change. Also I play Flight Sim X at Full display settings and there is no problems at all. But when i play Battlefield 2142 i can play for a couple mins untill the Video card is really needed for when say a Grenade goes off then it restarts and the display settings are on low. Mmmm and when i had the 1st Video card the SAPPHIRE Radeon X1650PRO as soon as i hit play from the main menu it would restart so getting this card did help so i could at least play for 2 mins or so lol. O and when i had my NVIDIA card the 5700 FX 125MB it would run the game but was a lil jumpy at times when i would play with alot of people but was still able to play it with out any problems. Well any ways Sorry for the Life Story lol!!! But im starting to think that 1 ATI is bad or 2 Sapphire is bad!

 

[Alpha388th]

I found a Solution LOL Instead of using the PCI-E power cable i got a adapter that has the same plugs as a PCI_E plug but this adapter pluges into 2 of the 4 prong plugs. Like the 4 prong plugs that would plug into a IDE HD or a cd drive and so on.... Now i can play any thing and it hasnt restarted at all in the last three days!

 

[Josh14]

Hey guys. I have the same problem. Every time I play games my computer shuts down. But I noticed that only the monitor shuts down and the cpu was up. I'm using a 110 volts for the monitor and 220 for the cpu.

Is there any connection to that? Thanks.

 

[1965ohio]

His PSU sucks. Sometimes people get graphics cards to work with the 4 pin adapters to PCI power because they are taking the load off one of the rails in the PSU.

His PSU has these ratings... +3.3V@32A, +5V@40A, +12V@24A, -12V@1.0A, +5VSB@2.0A

Look at the +12v rail... I am surprised he can even use the computer at all. With that rating, the 550w is all in your 3.3 and 5v rails. That is the most retarded PSU I've seen. For a single rail PSU, the +12v rail should be around 40-50a.

A normal 550w high quality PSU like Seasonic will have a rating like this... +3.3V@25A, +5V@25A, +12V@46A, -12V@0.5A, +5Vsb@3A

Get a new PSU before you damage something or never play games on it.

 

[1965ohio]

^ That's what I'm saying... his PSU has the most retarded ratings I have ever seen. I think it's actual power output is probably 250-320w. Adding so much power to the 5v rail is a useless waste of time. I think when they say the PSU is 550w, that is for a 3 second peak or something, continuous has to be 300 or less.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey