pc resets during games

[lockup]

Hi spec below:
AMD XP 2000+
512 ddr ram
300w supply
64mb geforce 4 440
cd-rw
60GB maxtor harddrive
200GB maxtor hard drive

The problem im getting is that only recently the comp resets when playin a game, pro evo..need for speeed etc, it never did this before, i recently also had spyware/malicous cr*p got rid of it still no chnge so i decided to clean install windows
no luck either..took pci card (modem didnt use it) so no interfernce with AGP..still no luck, im not sure what to do really

think few users have had this problem...
any help as always much appreciated, i'll be searching a lot for this answer.
cheers

 

[micker377]

Re-install didn't help - looks like hardware problems:

1. Heat related - check for dust and fan speed.
2. Power supply weak - shows up under stress. 400w or better
3. Memory - run memcheck86.

 

[tf1]

Heat and PSU are favourites. Check all the fans are running smoothly. If they are very dirty, brush them with a soft brush to loosen the dirt and blow it away.

A 300W power supply 'should' be OK with just a GF4 MX440 graphics card, but check its fan too. But if it and all the system fans are running OK, the PSU would be the next most likely culprit.


Regards: tf1

 

[Krosus]

O.k you could be having a problem i commented on in a thread about a week back in that, a bad quality psu when under stress tends to fire out a wildly fluctuating current to the board and cpu.
Hence the rails arent delivering enough or to much power to your system and trips it out to reset, my problem was under severe strain of gaming my psu wouldnt be supplying the Vcore with enough power , so the solution was to increase the Vcore by 0.5v using the MsI utility to change all the settings from windows. (most mobo manufactuers supply a similar utility)

 

[roycrom]

I had a similar problem running a similar system,

It turned out its was my cpu - AMD Athlon XP 2000+ overheating,

I had just put a manual fan controller on my PC and kept forgetting to crank up the CPU fan when running games,

Finally took the controller off and it solved the problem.

Only trouble was that my fan was really noisy running at full all the time which was why I went for the controller in the first plce.

I ended up buying an quiet arctic cooling fan for ~£15, ran great from then on - quiet and no reboots

------------------------------------------
Somethings come from nothing, nothing seems to come from somethings - SFA - Guerilla

roycrom

 

[Sentry77]

I've had a similar problem also, but most likely not a solution for you, as this was on a newly built computer and not a stable one that has developed a problem. I just put this here to contribute and help any others looking for help...

Voltage to the RAM can create this problem of rebooting, especially with low CAS settings. I built a new high end computer for gaming/video/image editing (and just cause I wanted it). I used Corsair hi-perf lvl 2 memory (2x512MB) 2-2-2 and set the cas, tras, etc. to match in the cmos. I tried a lot of solutions one at a time, and finally I bumped my RAM voltage up to 2.7 and solved the problem. It just didn't have enough power to run stable under high gaming loads. PSU voltages all looked good, quality Antec power supply so I don't think it was browning out. Just choked by lack of power. Hope it helps someone

-SeNTry