PC prob when gaming...

[z_dori]

hi guys,

for a while now my friend has a problem with his pc when he plays games.
after 1-2 hours the games closes, returning back to windows.

we updated all the drivers many times, reinstalled windows many times,
i even took the pc to my house, did RAM tests & HDD tests, after that did a stress test for 2 days while playing in the computer & nothing happend while the pc was in my room & i thought it was over for that prob.
& it came back again soon after.

the pc specs are:
P-D 3.4Ghz @ stock with Stock HS.
Gigabyte 8I945P-G-RH (Bios F3) [installed new chipset drivers yesterday....& still]
Hynix 512MBx2 RAM
Sapphire 6800gts 256MB
WD 160GB IDE
DVDRW IDE
regular PSU.


if anyone can think about the sorce of the problem it will be very helpfull...


thanks...
D.

 

[llama_man]

Is he hitting the Windows key by accident?

 

[z_dori]

"games closes, returning back to windows".

the games crashes........if it is not understood earlier....

 

[llama_man]

Sorry, I was being silly.

If the computer works fine in your house, but starts playing up shortly after returning to his, I suspect your buddy is doing things to his computer he's not telling you about!

 

[z_dori]

no way man....
i know him for 15 years....
he do exactly what i say....

 

[llama_man]

I guess his PC just likes you more. Maybe you should adopt it! He could come round and visit from time to time...

Seriously, I have no ideas. If it was a heat issue I'd expect the machine to completely shutdown and restart.

 

[z_dori]

it's with all games...
so i think of a problem with 100% load for a long time...
can it be the PSU?
i think it will react like heat load & not turning of the prog...
maybe a mem prob? ( i did stress tests & ram tests- 0 errors)

 

[llama_man]

If it was PSU, I'd expect the whole machine to restart, rather than just return to Windows.

A memory error could conceivably cause the game to crash, and thus revert back to Windows. But if a 2 day stress test caused no problems, that seems unlikely.

No idea!

 

[FinalDrive]

The first thing that comes to mind is the video card potentially overheating, since it only happens while gaming. Also does the computer sit "in" a desk at his house? It may not be getting enough cool air. When it was closing to windows was it logging any kind of errors in event viewer?

 

[z_dori]

his room has AC. the CPU @ 100% 50-55c. it was hotter in my room, 60-68c. i don't have AC.

i also tought about VGA, i added a while ago 4 90cm fans so now he has the cpu's, these 4 & one 80cm that came with the fan.
the temp is lower. but i'll try something with the VGA cooling...

 

[Shinedog]

You could start by posting what game he is playing. Perhaps there are log files associated with the game where errors could be getting logged to that you may not necessarily see on screen. Perhaps check the Windows application log for errors specific to the game. I know you say it doesn't happen at your house but that aside, it could be a problem with the game too, perhaps a known issue fixed in a later game patch, make sure you have the latest version of the game.

 

[z_dori]

it happends with all games: NFS most wated, C&C Generals, Oblivion, Gothic, Just cause, might & magic, donjen master...

new & old games as you can see...
which of them has error log & where?

how can i get to windows log?
how can i recognize the game in the log? his name will apear? the exe file name?
thanks man

 

[rammedstein]

a few things i'd recommend, if you have a spare harddrive (doesn't have to be big) install a fresh copy of windows on the spare disk to check if it is windows (its memory mapping is weird), aside from that i can't really think of anything aside from mobo, psu or graphics, but i doubt it to be them for some reason...