Unstable when playing game , is it power supply or video card problem?

[Jincuteguy]

I just built a new comp for one of my friend, but whenever he plays game, the comp restarted by itself.
Is the problem caused by the power supply? or video card? I need some help or suggestions from anyone, thx.

 

[Red]

Tell him not to restart button while he is playing the game!

No, really, it could be a couple of things. Update to latest stable drivers, latest patch of game... is the video card overclocked? Is the cpu overclocked? Give us specs on the cpu / video card / psu.

 

[egale]

What are the system specs?

 

[Jincuteguy]

It's an AthalonXP 2400+
512 ddr
Radeon 7000
PSU is 300W

Im not sure if he installed the latest driver cause when I installed the drivers, they were from the cd included with the video card. U guys think it's the driver then?

ps. nothing is overclocked, but one questions, what is the stock speed of an AthalonXP 2400+? Is it 2.0Ghz????

 

[MK005]

AMD Athlon Processor Specs
Yes. 2 Ghz



Could be the video card drivers, but don't rule out the motherboard. I recently put together a system for a friend and had the same problem. New board out of the box. The system rebooted randomly, found out that the motherboard had a bad capacitor (SOYO Dragon Ultra Platinum). So if this is your board...

 

[MrBond]

Could be memory too. Have any known good memory you can toss in it to check? I had random reboots on my system till I pulled out the cheap generic ram and replaced it with Crucial.

Unplug all unnessecary cards/usb devices and have him play the games and see if it reboots. That should put the minimum load on the power supply. Most computer shops will test PS's for you for free, so you could try that.

 

[Jincuteguy]

ok thx for all the suggestions guys,

 

[sniperruff]

i think it might be the power supply if it's generic. check if the case is nicely ventilated, once the CPU hits full load it gets hot, and if it's too hot the computer will restart (which is a good thing...)

or it can be the video card. maybe try and borrow another video card to try on that machine.

at last, it can be the OS. i play counter strike and it restarts when i exit the game. after a fresh win2k install the problem went away

another suggestion: the radeon 7000 is due for an upgrade. i suggest a cheap ti4200/radeon9200

tom

 

[sandorski]

The drivers on the cd that came with that vidcard are probably freakishly old(pre-Cat), upgrade those first.