Computer restarts when under stress

[hailangus1]

Usually I am playing Battlefield 2 online and my computer will restart randomly... many times a day to the point I have to give up on playing the game it occurs so often.

My computer will simply just reboot... most often when playing games, other times when running several programs including itunes internet and aim.

Sending error reports have came back as follows:

About 5 times >> RAM
1 Time >> Device Driver
Several Times >> Check BIOS

This has been happening most recently all followed by RAM or the device... It has been a long time since i got the BIOS message...


Another thing I have suspected is perhaps the PSU



I have had this problem after reformatting



Computer:
1 GB Corsair DDR400 RAM
ASUS P4R800-V Deluxe MOBO
Pentium 4 3.00GHz
Radeon 9800


Thank you for any replys

 

[Atheus]

What's the power supply? What are your voltages under load?

Also is the computer full of dust? Are all the fans going?

 

[KB]

Hae you run a MEMtest (http://www.memtest86.com/)?

 

[hailangus1]

The Power Supply is not very good... I will tell you when i have time to take out my computer, im busy right now

I dont know any voltages...

Dust shouldnt be too bad

all fans are going but i have considered heat to be a possible issue but it doesnt read over 108 fahr ever



Regaurding MEMtest86 or whatever... I dont really understand how it works... i download it, unpack it, run the application which will ask what drive to use which i want to use F but my floppy drive is apparently dumb and doesnt know when a disk is inserted or not... so i dont know what to do know that floppy doesnt work.

 

[Fallen Kell]

About 80% sure it is your power supply. It might be your video card, but if as you said, it happens also when running lots of programs, no games, then it is more likely your power supply.

 

[Fallen Kell]

To help us figure out if it is the power supply, can you post everything in the computer? Type/make/size hard drives, optical drives (CD/DVD/Burners), type/make sound card, size/number fans, type/make of any USB devices, etc...

 

[spherrod]

Originally posted by: Fallen Kell
About 80% sure it is your power supply. It might be your video card, but if as you said, it happens also when running lots of programs, no games, then it is more likely your power supply.

yeah - a dodgy power supply seems the likely cause to me as well

 

[Pabster]

Sure sounds like a power supply issue.

 

[hailangus1]

Intel Pentium 4 3.00 GHz
ASUS P4R800V Deluxe MOBO
Radeon 9800

Hard Drives:
Maxtor 4D080H4 >>>> 80 gb with partition
Western Digital WD800 >>> 80 gb

CDrom/DVD Drives:
Pioneer DVD 117R
Sony CD-RW CRX175E
Crappy Floppy Sony?

Sound:
Integrated SoundMax Audio (looking into an X-Fi once i upgrade PSU)

Fans:
1 Top
1 Side panel
Regular size?

USB:
It is what came with my pos Aspire case
2 front,,, i think 4 on the back

PSU:
Turbolink Switching power supply 420W Max

 

[Fallen Kell]

Ok, lets see... power requirements:

Intel P4 3.0 GHz... can't find exact spec, heat output is 89W, so it is drawing probably around 95W at load
Motherboard... can not find any information on Asus about the board!!! I know it exists since review sites had it.
ATI 9800 approx 75W
Maxtor 4D080H4, max draw: 1.8a 12V + .425a 5V total 23.7W
WD800 (BB?), max draw: .35a 12V + .8a 5V total 8.2W

Forgot to ask how much ram and what type...

Anyway, so far we are up to 201.9 W power draw. The motherboard may very well be drawing 60W, and your ram will draw a lot as well. A single DIMM of 128MB DDR uses approx 12W... 256MB DIMM uses about 18W, 512MB uses about 30W.... So 2x512 DIMMS will be about 60W...

Again, it is "within" your power supply limits, but it sounds a lot like the power supply itself is bad... Go get a Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-430, chiefvalue.com has them for like $60...

 

[nadirshakur]

You said "it doesnt read over 108 fahr ever". What doesn't? Your cpu? because I think it might be ur cpy just getting too hot. use Sandra Lite or SpeedFan or something.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Actually, now that I think more about this, can you get a "can of air" and blow out all the dust in your power supply and cpu heatsink? Give that a try since if there is a lot of dust buildup in the powersupply it won't give you stable voltages because it might not be able to handle the heat.