Machine Shutting off randomly...big problem

[tekgek]

Hey, guys,

got a pretty big problem here...whenever I play Warcraft III Frozen Throne, the machine cuts out. No blue screens, no nothing. the machine crashes so hard and so fast that it doesn't even have time to record the error. just put in an old 80gb hard drive. this may be the cause, but i do not know. it only seems to happen when I play this game. so now to all who can help, I say,

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tekgek

[DMB2000uk]

What PSU do you have?

And have you checked the event viewer for errors (control panel -> administrative tools -> event viewer)?

Dan

[bubba]

How old is your video card, I had an old FX card that died on my like that. The RAM on it crapped out, worked great until I pushed it playing a game, then down she went.

[tekgek]

The videocard is about 4 months old...ordered from newegg. It is an 8500gt. The psu is an almost brand new Antec Truepower Trio 650 Watt. I recently shook a screw out of it that fell in, but the problem continued. The event viewer contains nothing of usefulness. It is almost like I cut the power to the machine. There is no blue screen. Could it be the video card?? I migrated the game, because I can't find my disks, and now it is my main c drive which I know is good. I have not had a chance to test it yet, but i am hoping that this will solve the problem. Sorry for the semi-coherrent update, and answer, but I can bareley spell. had a long day, out of coffee.

Tekgek

[DMB2000uk]

Erm, fire up ATITools 3D artifact scanner and see if it runs stable (if it throws up errors about the artifacts, it's not stable).

Dropping a screw in the PSU isn't good.

Does the PC cut out if you try other games? And does it work OK when you just put the CPU under heavy load? (try ORTHOS stressprime or similar).

Dan

[martini161]

might of fired the psu, but if it doesnt do it in other games then probably not

[tekgek]

I think that the PSU is just fine. I am writing this from the machine in question. I am currently running ATiTools, AFTER I restored it to clock speed. That might be what was causing it. I'll post back when this test is complete.

Tekgek

[Alathald]

Still, you should probably grab a multimeter and test the PSU out just to be sure. It may handle a light load fine but when you use a program that taxes the program a bit harder you say it dies...just flat out dies. If it's not the GPU, then you should test the PSU.

[tekgek]

what to test? and where do i hook up the meter? guide please?

[martini161]

did unoverclocking the card help? if it didnt, then its probably the psu. unfourtunatly, there is no real acurate way to test a psu with a multi meter. why you may ask? because the voltage and wattage regulators are rated underload, and if you dont load them it will 1. Kill your psu, 2. the readings will be inacurate. so the only way to eliminate the psu as the problem is to swap it into a nother pc and see if it can handle the load, or swap another psu into this pc and see if your problem still exists

[tekgek]

alright, but ive got one more thing to bring up: i just realized that the cou cooler is a little bit loose. would that cause it?

Tekgek

[martini161]

screws might just loosen over time if they werent torqued all the way down when they were first installed. just tighten them. so did unoverclocking the card fix the problem?

[tekgek]

screws might just loosen over time if they weren't torqued all the way down when they were first installed. just tighten them. so did unoverclocking the card fix the problem?

Nope, the unoverclocking did not fix the problem. I was just installing something on the machine, and I heard it shut down. This time, the computer would not even turn on. I plugged in another PSU and the machine worked again. However, this PSU will not handle the machine's needs at full burn use. I will be calling Antec later in the week, as their support office is closed on Saturdays, to get the PSU exchanged. I am terribly sorry to all of you that thought that my PSU was fried. I should not have eliminated that as problem. Thanks for all the insight, as I really appreciate it.

[martini161]

teh psu might not be fired it might be that you just need a better one

[tekgek]

That may be the case, but the PSU is an Antec TruePower Trio 650 Watt. I am only running an 8500gt nvidia gpu and a croe 2 duo e6750 cpu with an ASUS P5K-E MOBO. Do you think that 650 Watt is overkill? Or do I need more power?

Tekgek

[martini161]

oh no that will be find i just got this thread confused with another guy with the same problem who had a really bad psu. that psu should be fine once you get a replacement

[DMB2000uk]

unfourtunatly, there is no real acurate way to test a psu with a multi meter. why you may ask? because the voltage and wattage regulators are rated underload, and if you dont load them it will 1. Kill your psu, 2. the readings will be inacurate.

What ever happened to reading the voltage while the PC is on? Ok, so it's not reccomended for everyone, but it sure beats reading an unloaded PSU.

Dan

[martini161]

what utlity reads voltages acuratly as a multimeter?

[ibleet]

No software that I'm aware of is as accurate as a multimeter or voltmeter.

[skier]

ok, this may sound odd to you veterans, but drivers can cause random reboot, BSOD or both, for instance here WAS my situation(as you know my POS 1650 hates drivers of all kind)

i had DX9.0 errors(just force quitting HL2 engine) when running HL2:E1 and regular HL2, so i reinstalled XP to fix it, (at this point i was on Catalyst 7.7 because no others worked at the time until 8.1) after reinstall, i got Catalyst 8.2 which worked fine in games, but benchmarks(3Dmark's) didnt finish w/out BSOD, and Team fortress 2 would (hard)lock rarely, and i tried 8.3 and back to 8.1, but only the manufacturer drivers (on the driver disk) would work, so back to 7.7 and problem free

you never know, mabie the 8500 series has bad driver support like the 1650 series