Wolverines

OK, I have a problem I cant figure out and it is seriously stopping me from using my computer for anything but email/browsing.
Everytime i start to play a game, WoW, COD, TF2, even when my wife plays Sims, the machine will shut down about 3 mins into playing. When i say shut down I mean you are playing one min and then 5 seconds later power is OFF. I replaced the dinky 350w PSU with a beefy 500w Antec, still does it. Memcheck shows clean. Any ideas? Would like to troubleshoot this as much as possible before replacing the motherboard.

3 questions:

1)  What color are your shoes?
2)  Do you have air conditioning in your house?
3)  How many case fans do you have in your computer?


Sounds like you might be overheating to me.

shoes are brown, keep the house at like 72, there is 3 fans. How would I go about verifying that it was overheating? Is there any software that monitors that?

my wife playes the sims  if you are running vista check the EA web site for patches.  there is something with Vista that doesnt like the graphics of the sims.  i fixed it on the simes 2 for her but i cant get simsocitys to work for more then 10 min.  and like all things EA its not there falt ( I hate EA more then SOE )

I have used a program called Motherboard Monitor before.  It's pretty handy and it will start beeping if the computer gets too hot.

It could also be a video card issue as Arctic suggested.

I'd go with JT on this one.  It really sounds like a heat issue.  Back before I knew anything (as if I do now) my video card fan died.  I figured it'd be OK since I had plenty of case fans.  Yeah, bad idea.  Overheated one day and took the motherboard with it.  Make sure all the fans in your system are actually spinning when the system is on.  Does your motherboard have a heat alarm that you can turn on in the BIOS?  May want to check that and see if it's enabled. 

Also, you could try using a program like Burn-In Test (http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm) to try and get your system to replicate the problem when you aren't in a game as well as do some basic hardware tests.

Mine used to die like that on me all the time at the old place.  In order to remedy the situation, I cracked open the side and blew a full size fan on it from a "colder" air source...IE:  away from the cramped area that my computer was held in.

Usually worked, and is a good test to see if it is overheating.

Agree with most of this.... check the fans, make sure the CPU fan especially is running.  If it's an Intel CPU, it will most likely shut things down if it gets overheated.  What kind of PC is it?  Did you build it?

I think your problem is guinea pig related

(http://sinnombre.org/Images/pig.jpg)

Lazy bastards are always slacking off.  That is why I always use hamster power.

This is what I get for buying a cheap ass dell. The first time I have ever purchased a computer prebuilt (i usually build them myself).

I think i am going to build a machine from scratch and this one may be my new HTPC. Not going to see me in game for a while :(

So nothing worked?

the fans are running, but it is a cheap ass dell and I am figuring that the power is failing due to heat. I could blow a fan into like you suggest but that is a little ghetto for the bedroom lol. I guess I could get a new case, but the mobo is some cheap ass FOXCON and i dont want to keep throwing parts at it till it. Cant polish a turd.

Dont forget the little chip fan and the fan on the back of the power supply itself.

Gaius Baltar let a Cylon design your system.  They know how to keep you off the WoW now.