PC shutting down during games

[lolbron]

Here are my computer specs:

Phenom II X2 555, unlocked to quad core and OC'd to 3.6 GHz
4 GB DDR2 RAM
GTX 460 768 MB vid card
1 TB 7200 RPM SATA HD
2 TB 7200 RPM SATA HD
1 DVD-RW drive
700 watt OCZ modstream PSU

Initially, it would only crash when I played graphically demanding games like Bad Company 2. It would vary-- sometimes it woudl crash within a few minutes of playing, or after an hour. It never crashed when I played games like Starcraft II. This led to my theory that the graphics card was using too much power when playing graphically demanding games, so I ordered a power supply with beefier 12V rails: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371044.

Now, with the new power supply, the PC shuts down within a few minutes.

Any ideas what might be causing this? Video card overheating?

 

[Slugbait]

Heat is usually the prime suspect, but a shutdown usually isn't caused by the video card...it's usually caused by an overheating CPU, and the shutdown happens in order to save the CPU. You either have an insufficient cooler, or your case has insufficient cooling.

The crashing you used to have is caused by your unlocked CPU, it has nothing to do with the GPU.

 

[Ken g6]

Phenom II X2 555, unlocked to quad core and OC'd to 3.6 GHz

Given you've ruled out the PSU, this looks suspicious. Try a few hours of Prime95 and see if it's stable. You might have to down-clock and/or re-lock a core.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

watercool

 

[lolbron]

Given you've ruled out the PSU, this looks suspicious. Try a few hours of Prime95 and see if it's stable. You might have to down-clock and/or re-lock a core.

I've run prime95 on it in the past and it was plenty stable, and ran pretty well for almost a year. This just started recently.

 

[lolbron]

Heat is usually the prime suspect, but a shutdown usually isn't caused by the video card...it's usually caused by an overheating CPU, and the shutdown happens in order to save the CPU. You either have an insufficient cooler, or your case has insufficient cooling.

The crashing you used to have is caused by your unlocked CPU, it has nothing to do with the GPU.

Is it ever caused by the PSU having insufficient power?

I think I'll clean my heatsink re-apply thermal grease on my CPU, and clean any dust out of my case.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

yes it could possibly be so but 700 watts is ALOT of power

 

[Slugbait]

Is it ever caused by the PSU having insufficient power?

Not that I have ever seen. But it could be that you simply got a lemon of a PSU...yours is a Delta, which certainly isn't bad. One thing to try is to put your old PSU back in, see if the shutdowns stop occurring.

I think I'll clean my heatsink re-apply thermal grease on my CPU, and clean any dust out of my case.

That's a good start, and may solve the shutdown issue. But it won't solve the crashing issues.

 

[mfenn]

I've run prime95 on it in the past and it was plenty stable, and ran pretty well for almost a year. This just started recently.

Doesn't matter. A weak core that was locked in the first place and then stressed by overclocking can easily fail after the fact.

 

[Googer]

Heat is usually the prime suspect, but a shutdown usually isn't caused by the video card...it's usually caused by an overheating CPU, and the shutdown happens in order to save the CPU. You either have an insufficient cooler, or your case has insufficient cooling.

The crashing you used to have is caused by your unlocked CPU, it has nothing to do with the GPU.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Sounds like overclocking is the problem.

Since the Pentium3 tualatin days, Intel has integrated a thermoresistor inside all of their CPUs to protect against insufficient cooling. AMD followed suit in the original Athlon 64 hammer CPUs. Depending on your system, i would download a utility that reads CPU temperatures and determine if this really is your problem.

I don not condone overclocking but if cooling is okay, then I would try giving your cpu a small voltage boost. Also, improper memory timings can cause a reboots and freezes so go to your bios and set the timings to SPD or Automatic which will read the timings from the SPD chip on your DIMM. The one caveat with this is, that not all memory makers properly program the SPD or bother to program them at all. This also causes its own sets of issues.

What brand and model of RAM and Motherboard are you using?

(crucial does a good job with SPD programming)