Ive come upon quite a problem with my pc. Every time I play a game, my system shuts down. This problem started happening to me about 3 weeks ago. My computer is coming up on 2 years old and I havnt added any new hardware. It displays no warning window and just turns off. The power light stays on though on the front of the case. I thought it could be heat issues and it possibly still can be but I did download a heat monitor and it always keeps at a constant low heat. (25-30 degrees celcius). Ive also dusted my computer so it is spotless and all fans work. Again, this only happens while playing games (any full screen games). That leads me to think it is a Video Card problem. Please any help would be much appreciated. This computer is my baby and I would prefer if worked right.


Here's my system information
-Thermaltake VA3000 Dream Tower- 2 100mm fans
-Rosewill RV450 450watt Powersuply
-Aopen 4X4C Max 2 Motherboard
-Intel P4 3.0Ghz, 800m 478P/512k Hyper Threading Chipset
-VGA ATI Radeon 9800pro 128mb Video Card
-1Gb Corsair RAM

any help?

What is the heat monitor monitoring?

Is it monitoring your Graphics card? Is the fan working on your Graphics card?

Such behavior is most likely hardware and most likely heat. (either CPU or GPU)

Or an inconsistent/failing PSU.

Well im using Speedfan 4.31 and it gives information in this format.
Temp 1 - 26c
Temp 2 - 33c
Temp 3 - -48c (dont know why that is negative)
HD0 - 27c

Those are the average temps. They dont fluctuate much at all. I dont really know what hardware components those temps refer to so if there is a program that does a better job, that'd be sweet. Thanks

Can you monitor these temps as you play your game?

This program can test your CPU

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownloa...load-3046.html

But I would suspect your GPU (or Graphics processor) more.

Have you run with an open case to insure that the card fan is working?

Ive tried monitoring the temps while playing a game but it seems the problem is getting worse. 2 weeks ago I could play a game for an hour before the pc would shut off. Now its happening within 15 minutes. The time I did try monitoring the temps, they seemed fine. Ive tried running it open case also and the vid card fan still works. Ill take a look at that program you sent.

So i've talked to my go to guy (father) who knows a fair share of computer related subjects and he pointed out it could be software issue and I should try reformatting. I have no problem with reformatting because I recently had to do it because of a virus. This doesnt sound 100% reasonable mostly because it happens only with full screen games. Not like solitare or clip games that are online. Ive defragged the system and it didnt shutoff during that process. I am at a total loss.