PC shutting down during games and movies.

[John]

My PC will randomly shut off while playing movies or playing games. Is it possible that it is overheating and shutting down to protect itself?

 

[inhopeofglory]

Quite possibly. Is your CPU fan going crazy before it shuts down? And does it shut down, restart, or just switch off?

 

[John]

Quite possibly. Is your CPU fan going crazy before it shuts down? And does it shut down, restart, or just switch off?

the fan remains the same. The computer just shuts off.

 

[inhopeofglory]

If the fan isn't going crazy before it shuts off, then it's unlikely to be the temperature. Have you recently installed any new software or hardware, updated your graphics card drivers or anything like that? It could be a driver problem/incompatibility.

 

[John]

Nope i have not installed anything at all.

 

[Nick]

What games are you playing? Wlhat is your processor speed?

 

[John]

Ut99, UT2004, UT3, HALO, etc etc. but i have been playing those games for a while and never had a problem before.

 

[inhopeofglory]

If nothing has been altered driver- or hardware-wise, then it indicates a possible developing fault, most likely in hardware. Can you replicate the shutting off? i.e. does it always happen when you play a certain game, play for a certain amount of time, etc? Does it only happen when playing games and/or movies, or when you do anything else on the computer?

One suggestion would be to install monitoring software to check your CPU, graphics card, and motherboard temperatures while you're playing the games. You can set up alarms that will sound when the temps reach a certain level. That would tell you whether it's temperature related.

This is what I use. http://www.dvhardware.net/modules.php?n ... page&pid=3 (Motherboard Monitor 5)

Another alternative problem could be a glitch in your graphics card drivers. Have you updated them? If not, you could try updating them and see whether that helps.

 

[Lewis]

Did you do a Virus scan and and a spyware scan, and what condition is your CMOS battery in ? Did you try to reseat all of your cables, if all this checks out and the fan is ok, check your hardware, and reseat any PCI cards you have, bad hard drives can do this to from corruption and or age, also a bad PSU will do that too.