My PSU blew a couple of weeks ago and I bought a new one (it's probably crap too, as i was looking to save money, so bought Q-Tec 450Watt one). I also bought a new MOBO (MI K7N2 Delta Series MS-6570 (v1.X).
I have 1Gb of PC2700 RAM
AMD AthlonXP 2600+ (FSB333)
Nvidia Gforce 6800GT
Audigy ZS
80 & 60GB HDD
Anyway, everytime I try to play doom3,farcry or run 3dmark03 it starts fine and runs very nice (when running precaches time demo on doom3 at 1024x768, ultra high details, x4 AA Vsync off, it does 51.1 fps, or my farcry everything at max never falls under 35fps, and most of the time hangs around 40-60fps) but after running any of those for a while the machine switches off, and not like someone forcing a shut down on it, it's like someone pulls a plug out, and the only way to start it up is to unplug it, wait a few seconds, plug it back in and it'll start just fine without any hicups and no sign of anything going wrong.
I just put it together last night and installed windowsXP home on it. All the drivers seem to be there, and it runs fine if i don't play any games or run benchmarking tools.
I had a similar problem with a computer crashing everytime I tried to run a 3D application, either to benchmark or play a game...and it turned out the PSU was underpowered.
I haven't heard of Q-Tec, so I don't know if they are a good brand or not.
Some other things you can try are changing your AGP setting from 8x to 4x, disabling FastWrites, making sure you have the latest AGP drivers from your motherboard manufacturer.
If that fails, if you can get your hands on a good quality PSU, say a ThermalTake PurePower 420, that may be worth trying.
But try the other suggestions first
XP2800+, Abit NF7, 1GB Dual-Channel DDR333, ATI R9800PRO 128MB, SB Live! 5.1 Digital, TT PurePower 420W, Samsung 120GB, Maxtor 120GB, LG DVD+-R/RW, WIN2K PRO SP4
Definitely sounds like the PSU being overloaded. Q-Tec PSUs aren't too bad, I've used a couple. At least you know it trips off when overloaded - the REALLY cheap ones just blow up and can take other components with them ..
Use something like motherboard monitor, set to log all your voltages to a file every couple of seconds to see if they dip just before crashing.
I had a little look and did a littl ebit of testing and came ot a conclusion that the system power goes down when I load my Gcard to the max, but when the power does go down it's not gone, my LAN LED is still on when it goes down. Is it possible that the system overheats and my mother board cuts the power as a safety mechanism? I the monitor app that came with my mobo it shows that system temperature can easyly get upto 50C and the CPU temp goes upto 65C with my Gcards temp reaching 85C+ easily. And the system runs really nice when not loading my gcard too much.
So is it possible that it's an overheating problem?
Yep sounds like heat. The fact that it builds up and then shuts down is very indicative of that, if heavy gaming did it at the very start that would indicate maybe a PSU, but this slow build-up to shutdown seems like heat to me too.
And with that typical 85C card it's not surprising. Try running your computer with the case open, even a fan blowing on it, see if it runs for longer periods, if so you may need better cooling, specifically around that heat source of a card.
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