Sudden Reboots

Mr E

PC has been acting up for the last few weeks. During normal use, its fine. However, when I play a game, I get random reboots while playing (usually between 15 and 30 minutes into the game). Its happened in 3 different games lately, so its not the games themselves.

I reinstalled everything last weekend - latest graphic drivers, mb drivers etc. Got Vice City today, and sure enough, 15 minutes into the game it rebooted.

Has anyone seen this happening before?

I asked a friend (who works in Dell, and knows alot about hardware), and he reckons its my motherboard (he is adamant that SA-7 boards SUCK, big time.....)

Anyone got any ideas? I really want to play this game properly....

- Dave.

Ruu_Old

sounds like a cooling issue, maybe something getting too hot, like the hard drive maybe, just an idea. It works for a while when u boot it up but when it heats up its when it reboots, anyone else?

GUI

TmB do you monitor the cpu temperature at boot
and during windows usage?

also what os,have you set the os not to automatically reboot
System Properties-Advanced-Startup and Recovery
checkbox in there

a BSOD error message though not user friendly..
can be useful for debugging

Zab

Check your Event Log.... it may be able to shed some light on the situation.

Zab.

seamus

What's changed in the last few weeks? Were these games working fine before, or are they all only new?

My system was giving me hassle cos I stuck in my old stick of RAM into my new machine. Removed it, all was well.

madmoe

@ Zab
How does one go about checking the event log?

Thanx

Detonated Sauce

Try unplugging all unneccessary stuff from your usb ports etc and then try run it. It might be something to do with power.

Mr E

I have a spare GeForce 3 card lying about. I'll try putting that in first (instead of my Radeon). I have 2 high RPM hard drives side by side, which I'm a bit concerned about... whats the best way keeping them cool?

There is nothing strange in the event log. I'm going to install Motherboard Monitor to see if that shows up anything.

- Dave.

Ruu_Old

not sure pal, but install either a Qtec Hard Drive Cooler or a Silent Hard Drive Enclosure might just do the trick, havent used any of these, anyone else?