Computer crashing very often

[Bill Johnson]

computer specs:
motherboard: asus P5KPL-CM
CPU: intel pentium dual CPU E2200 (2.2 ghz)
graphics card: nvidia geforce 9800gt
PSU: 450W
RAM: 2gb
windows XP professional

My computer has been recently shutting down without warning when playing games, it does one of two things. It either restarts and boots normally again straight away or it shuts down completely and it doesn't turn it back on for a few minutes (sometimes an hour). I don't think it is overheating because the case doesn't feel very hot at all so I think it might be the power supply or some other part of the computer which may have failed. The problem only started after i installed the new graphics card which is currently in the computer, before this i just had some intel graphics chip which came standard with the motherboard.

 

[leo246246]

Try disabling the Auto restart upon system failure. To do this, when system boots, press F8 until you get the Windows boot menu, then turn off the Automatic restart on system failure. When the system crashes again, you might get a BSOD with Stop code. Alternatively, check if there were any crash/mini dump files created:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315263

My money would be on the display driver that needs updating (if that is the only recent change to the system)

 

[bumnut53]

Im having a similar issue and am ordering a new power supply today, I will let you know how it goes.

 

[tlg]

A long time ago I had an 6600GT with a 420W power supply. When I replaced it with an 9800GT the system was also shutting down when I was launching games. I replace the power supply with 550W and never had this issue again. It seems you are having the same problem.

 

[Bill Johnson]

I turned off automatic restart and when my computer crashed i got no blue screen of death, it just started as normal. I think it has something to do with the computer being starved of power or the PSU is damaged.

 

[truegenius]

looks like 450w is not true power of your psu, true power is may be around 200w-250w
also use hwinfo32 to monitor temps and voltage to figure out the problem
you can calculate power requirement of you system here
extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

 

[Bill Johnson]

problem solved! bought a new more powerful psu and my computer hasn't crashed at all

 

[Bill Johnson]

Best answer selected by Bill Johnson.