Problem with pc

[umeu]

i dont know where to post this but since the start of this week im experiencing the following problem with my pc. i have a dell inspiron 545 of 1,5 years old (never had any trouble of this sort with it, no hardware trouble thats to say). intel core 2 quad q8300.

sometimes when im running Age of Empires III, i play online games, the pc malfunctions, the screen goes black and doesnt react anymore but my pc is still on and running. i have to manually restart it and then it works again.

it doesnt happen when im not playing or watching movies or just browsing the net.

at first i assumed it was an overheating problem, but now im not sure. i cleaned the fans and all that. i downloaded a program to track the heat. and ive never seen it going over 60 degrees. ive set options thus that it would alarm me if the heat would reach 70 degrees. ive not gotten a warning once but the shutdowns keep happening.

could it be something else or is it really because of overheating? it did start to happen only recently when the temperatures outside went up considerably but last summer it was even hotter and it ran fine.

i havent seen anything else odd. thanks in advance

 

[davcon]

Gpu driver issue = look for updated drivers

 

[umeu]

i dont really know much about computers, could you be more specific?

 

[umeu]

hmm ive been running some tests and it might be that the problem is related only to the aoe3 game. ive tried some other games and no problem arose. im still not sure what gpu driver issue means, but davcon seems quite sure thats the problem. could the driver suddenly have a problem with the game? i mean ive been playing it for years and never had a problem.

im quite certain now its not an overheating problem since my temps are steady 50 and never reaching over 65.

edit: i updated my drivers but i still get the same problem.

 

[davcon]

If your drivers are fine it's probably DirectX related.
Download and run this you might be missing a file.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3

 

[umeu]

thanks, but the problem has been solved. ive taken out 2 of my 4 ram cores and now it runs fine. it was related to the game and more ppl had this problem.

anyway thanks for your help i did have some outdated drivers and ive learned some new stuff haha