Michigan Reefers banner
Cancel
Create thread New Forums

Gaming puter problem?

Tags
300 ati buy dual fish free live problem red remove top trade upgrading ups video
Jump to Latest
1 - 20 of 21 Posts
D

DLBerlin

· Registered
Joined
·
16,388 Posts
Discussion starter · #1 ·
I set up a new system for the ole man for gaming and have a problem I've never ran into before.
It's running Vista, with an Athlon 64 X2 6000+, 3gb DDR2 ram, Geforce 8800GTS with latest drivers Direct X 10
No errors shown anywhere, but it is randomly completely shutting down the computer in games, so far Half Lifes Portal game,and Call of Duty 4. Just complete instant power gone like you pulled the plug.
Any ideas?
 
#2 ·
From what I've heard Vista is full of problems. I would check with the manufacturer 1800 number to see what help they can give you.
 
Save
Reply Quote Like Like
#3 ·
completely shutting down as in something that requires a cold start (pushing the power button to start the system again)?

If that's the case the odds of it being software are less than an hardware issue... I'm sorry to say but your processor blows =) Aside from that.... restarts and shut downs are commonly due to over heating, improperly seated heat sinks on the cpu, inadequate cooling for the cpu, gpu *graphics card* overheating, if you overclocked this, dial it down a little, if you overclocked it and upped the voltage dial that down, if you messed with anything in the bios reset it to defaults and try again. Could also be problems with the PSU *power supply* it could be inadequate for your system, ie.. when playing games your cpu and gpu will require more energy and if your psu is insufficient in supplying the demand things such as this could occur, could also be hardware flaws in the motherboard, ram, cpu, gpu, hard drive...OH YES!! The hard drive...could be over heating or having problems as well.. pretty much the meat and potatoes of the computer are suspect. If you want help with this over the phone shoot me a PM and I'll be happy to work with you tomorrow while I'm at work, 6am-6pm assuming there aren't any issues I need to attend to. I've been building, repairing, and suppling complaint free support for over 12 years, did phone support for over 3 and now am at a different stage...networks..woo!

Best of luck, if you want to test any of that stuff...and you don't know what you're doing, best bet is to wait for someone to come out there or give me a pm.
 
#4 ·
sent pm with some possible fixes...

1. look at the memory, people have had problems putting 3 GB in as it needs to be paired, 2 or 4 GB in the instance of 1 GB sticks. just remove the third stick and see what happens.

2. power supply not big enough to run everything. this rig needs aminimum of 600 watts. and no offense but is the video card plugged into the power supply, its a six prong plug?

3. forgot this in the pm and it is a definte possibility here. it could be a GPU (chipset on video card) cooling problem. Especially if the computer shuts off during gaming. What are your video card temps running at? The 8800's run hot and if they go over say 90 deg. Celsius during game play it could shut the system down. I use a program called RivaTuner 2.06 to control my video card fan speeds program isn't quite vista ready though and takes some tweaking. Not sure if the Nvidia program that comes with the cards has a fan tweak or not. Have you looked in the Nvidia forums?

http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner
 
#6 ·
Also forgot to ask if there are any problems reported in event viewer.

control panel/system and maintenance/administrative tools/event viewer

there are windows logs and applications and services logs and some where in those logs a problem may ne noted. usually in red with an astriisk you can't miss it if it logged a problem. windows vista uses these logs for its problem solving which can be rum manually at

control panel/system and maintenance/problem reports and solutions

on the left you can check for new solutions or view problems so see what in there.

I run Half-Life 2 Episode 1 through my steam account with no problems but COD4, another DX9 game, I had problems with it running choppy with Vista DX10 even though it is supposed to be backwards compatible to DX 9. One of the forums I was in said to install an updated DX9 copy and it seemed to fix it. You can have both DX versions on the computer at the same time.
 
Discussion starter · #7 ·
Its a Gateway(should have known better) I didnt have time to build him one this time around.
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Processor 6000+ (AMD Live!™) (3.0GHz, 2 x 1MB L2 cache, 2000MHz system bus)
3072MB 667MHz dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM (2-1024MB modules & 2-512MB modules)
No error messages anywhere, nothing overheating or overclocked.
I think I found the problem though-it only has a 300w power supply:rolleyes:

It runs everything perfect at 1600x1200 on a 50" HDTV with all graphics maxed without a hiccup, but Portal shuts it down within a very short time, and COD4 just started shutting it down tonight after playing for several days just fine. Half life 2 and Quake 4 have run perfectly.
I think it just needs a bigger power supply. Videocard calls for a minimum of 450w.

Off to the store tomorrow....
 
#8 ·
300W! I can't believe Gateway would even send a newer computer out the door with that low a PS in it especially with how power hungry video cards are now a days. If you have time to order on-line go to Newegg.com, best prices on the web and they use FedEx shipper saver, usually 3 days to door from CA. Can also find some free shipping deals. Tigerdirect.com has the next lowest prices and ships UPS out of Chicago and I usually get it the next day. These two sites are the top pc builders on-line suppliers. Newegg is good for reading product reviewes from people who have actually bought the product. I sometimes research what I want there just to check the reviews.
 
Discussion starter · #9 ·
I usually buy from Newegg but I need to get this fixed for him. Sunday is his only day off and he wants to play.
I'll have to see what the locals have. I'll get reamed on it I'm sure.
I was really surprised/disgusted it was only 300w
 
#10 ·
You should be fine with anything around 600 watts but some gamers say more is always better (but I've even seen some rigs running as low as 450 watts but wouldn't want to try it myself). My ATI HD 3850 is rated at 145 watts and my 600 watt supply is fine (it was $60 on Newegg with free shipping). Just make sure any PS you get is rated as Nvidia SLI ready and you know the 8800gts will work fine off of it.
 
#11 ·
600w is overkill for that system, 500-550 would be what I'd recommend, get something 80% or greater efficiency. If you're thinking of upgrading later on, then a 600+ watt would be suggested. If you're not going to run SLI, then you don't need to worry about the SLI psu's. I have an extra 400-450 watt I could trade you for some stuff *wink* *wink*

some...fish stuff.... haha
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
With the PS and Vid upgraded it's running games fantastic, at a much better price than the "gaming systems" the local stores had. Barely got the PS in the case! Another 1/8" larger and it wouldnt have went in.
At least Gateway doesnt load the comp with as much junk software as HP.
 
#15 ·
Talking about call of duty 4, waited so long for this and my computer won't even load it. It's sitting in my desk. I can run half life 2 and portal with no problems though. Bioshock, can't run that one either. So I just keep playing the old ones over and over
 
#17 ·
Jeff, what graphic card do you have? If you bought your computer from gateway, hp, dell etc long ago, it could have a crappy graphic card. Such as a 64mb card. ( If your comp is 5-7 years old, there may be a chance you have that much memory int the card, but I could be wrong. They may of put 64mb cards in longer ago.) Half life 2 doesn't need a great graphic card to play, but bioshock and cod4 are 2 of the best graphic card demanding games out on the market right now.
 
Discussion starter · #18 ·
Jeff's dvd drive wont read the disk's so he cant even install them.
I would try first getting a cd/dvd drive cleaner and using that, and if that doesnt work put in a new dvd drive.
 
#19 ·
deb glad you got it all fixed I would have guessed powersupply as I had a very similar issue with a computer that I had baught needless to say I custom build all my computers now with exception of laptops too bad I didn't see this thread till just now could have helped sooner

marc
 
Discussion starter · #20 ·
I used to build all mine but time doesnt really permit anymore. I have run into most of the typical problems before with power supplies going bad, but never that type of shutdown. Still running perfect, and he played COD4 for about 7 hours last night without a hitch so I'd say that was definately the problem.
 
1 - 20 of 21 Posts
About this Discussion
20 Replies
7 Participants
Last post:
tazzy695
Michigan Reefers
posts
1M
members
20K
Since
2003
Michigan Reefers is dedicated to the marine reef aquarium hobby. Learn more about reef aquariums and maintenance, and view our large collection of coral and marine fish photos.
Full Forum Listing
Explore Our Forums
Selling Forums Want to Buy Announce Frag Meets & Swaps New Member Introductions