Unexplained Gaming Shutdown

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Nokoff

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Hi there everyone, i've been struggling with this problem for about 2 months now so I'm just about fed up and feel like i've exhausted all possible solutions to the problem. I would greatly appreciate if you could offer any kind of suggestions or recommendations.

Myself and my father have similarly specced pcs both running Intel Core 2 Duo E6850s, 8800GTXs, 4GB Transcend Value Ram, Asus Nforce mobos. Recently my dad has been having problems with his pc.

Problem: PC suddenly switches off during gaming.

He can enter the game, run for a few minutes (if that long) and then the pc just dies. Cold turkey, doesn't reboot, no error reported, no bsod, not even anything in the windows log to indicate as much.

I've been through the standard replies of (oh it's the power supply, or oh it's the this and whatever too many times to mention).

Seeing as we both have similarly specced pcs I have the luxury of swapping out his parts with mine and other pcs in the house and have done so on several occasions. I've swapped out his ram with 2 different kinds, swapped his 8800 for mine etc. To add more to the cocktail he has been able to successfully transplant all of his components onto another motherboard (an el cheapo board from matrix) and it works. Also, take that exact asus setup and replace the 8800 for a 7800 and it works! So this would rule out cpu,ram,gfx card you say? Not quite. You might be inclined to think that it's the motherboard at this point but I would disappoint you to say that this week i sent back the board to asus and got a completely new board, different chipset etc: P5K-V and now it's doing the same thing!!!!!!

Do you understand my frustration???

Kind regards
Linden
 
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What makes you think its not the PSU? Have you tried another one?

Other than that its sounds like it could be an over heating problem.
 
Sounds like an overloaded or faulty PSU or heating issue.
 
Sounds like the mobo or the PSU, check that the PSU is giving enough power, also check your RAM timing.
IMO...
Most likely the PSU is not giving the GPU enough power or it's draning all the power as soon as you start a game and it shuts off as the other componets have no power
 
Hi Linden

This really sounds like a power supply issue. Have you tried swapping your father's PSU for another, perhaps stronger one? As Glordit said, it sounds as if the PSU isn't supplying the card with enough power. Make sure that the PSU can supply sufficient amps on each rail. :)

Hope this helps. :)
 
Nokoff said:
Hi there everyone, i've been struggling with this problem for about 2 months now so I'm just about fed up and feel like i've exhausted all possible solutions to the problem. I would greatly appreciate if you could offer any kind of suggestions or recommendations.

Myself and my father have similarly specced pcs both running Intel Core 2 Duo E6850s, 8800GTXs, 4GB Transcend Value Ram, Asus Nforce mobos. Recently my dad has been having problems with his pc.

Problem: PC suddenly switches off during gaming.
Click to expand...

Bad hardware. Get Memtest and boot with it, have it test your ram entirely.
I had a stick of Kingston (Samsung made) RAM go bad on me all of a sudden.
Maybe CPU is overheating? Maybe have the mobo load up all the failsafe defaults?
If its a power supply issue, disable other PCI cards and harddrives and only use your one drive. Cam u reproduce the error?
Try to underclock your G-fx card. Maybe its bad onboard RAM?


Maybe you need an intel chipset based mobo with an intel CPU? <----- This may work for you.
Maybe that will work instead of an Nforce2 mobo.
 
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"What makes you think its not the PSU? Have you tried another one?"
- Yes, he has a thermaltake butterfly 480w purepower. I've swapped it for my enermax 650watt, no improvement.

"Other than that its sounds like it could be an over heating problem."
- CPU runs at 31 degrees idle and never goes above 45.

"Have u changed Hard drives? Mabey its a softwareprob."
-Yes, changed physical drives, redone windows, changed drivers etc.

"Bad hardware. Get Memtest and boot with it"
-Did you read the part where I said i used 3 DIFFERENT sets of RAM? My transcend set, and another set of legend in his pc.

"Maybe have the mobo load up all the failsafe defaults"
- It's now running with a completely different, brand new motherboard. CMOS settings are not the problem.

"Can u reproduce the error?"
-It's not difficult to reproduce the error because it does it EVERY time. Every game. Every time. Strangely enough any benchmark/burn in software runs 100% right through also taking away from the overheating theory.

"Try to underclock your G-fx card. Maybe its bad onboard RAM?"
-Hmmmm

"Maybe you need an intel chipset based mobo with an intel CPU?"
- i've swapped his cpu for mine. We were using exactly the same motherboards and cpus.

"Maybe that will work instead of an Nforce2 mobo."
- The board is Nforce 650 sli and now then new one is 7.. whatever.

So that brings us back to step 1 ;-)

Shall we try round 2 diagnosis?
 
Nokoff said:
"What makes you think its not the PSU? Have you tried another one?"
- Yes, he has a thermaltake butterfly 480w purepower. I've swapped it for my enermax 650watt, no improvement.

"Other than that its sounds like it could be an over heating problem."
- CPU runs at 31 degrees idle and never goes above 45.

"Have u changed Hard drives? Mabey its a softwareprob."
-Yes, changed physical drives, redone windows, changed drivers etc.

"Bad hardware. Get Memtest and boot with it"
-Did you read the part where I said i used 3 DIFFERENT sets of RAM? My transcend set, and another set of legend in his pc.

"Maybe have the mobo load up all the failsafe defaults"
- It's now running with a completely different, brand new motherboard. CMOS settings are not the problem.

"Can u reproduce the error?"
-It's not difficult to reproduce the error because it does it EVERY time. Every game. Every time. Strangely enough any benchmark/burn in software runs 100% right through also taking away from the overheating theory.

"Try to underclock your G-fx card. Maybe its bad onboard RAM?"
-Hmmmm

"Maybe you need an intel chipset based mobo with an intel CPU?"
- i've swapped his cpu for mine. We were using exactly the same motherboards and cpus.

"Maybe that will work instead of an Nforce2 mobo."
- The board is Nforce 650 sli and now then new one is 7.. whatever.

So that brings us back to step 1 ;-)

Shall we try round 2 diagnosis?
Click to expand...

Did this happen all of a sudden, or did it occur over a period of time?

Well all I can think of is taking it all apart, putting it back together like the day you bought it IE: Everything that was in it the first time it startted.

Otherwise I would take it all back and get it all new then. Seriously, I would! no use in buying PC equipment to have it fail on you when trying to play a game, unless it is out of it's warrenty.

BTW you running XP SP2/3 or Vista SP1??
 
Nokoff said:
Also, take that exact asus setup and replace the 8800 for a 7800 and it works! So this would rule out cpu,ram,gfx card you say?
Click to expand...
If replacing the GFX fixes the problem then how the hell do you rule out the GFX?:confused:

His 8800=fail
Your 8800=fail
7800=works

I'd suggest you focus on that. Try different DX version, older gfx drivers, different firmware on GFX, force to 1x PCI-E if the card supports it, OpenGL games etc.

Have you considered that maybe the airflow in his case is different from yours causing both 8800's to fail in his case do to overheating?
 
HavocXphere said:
If replacing the GFX fixes the problem then how the hell do you rule out the GFX?:confused:

His 8800=fail
Your 8800=fail
7800=works

I'd suggest you focus on that. Try different DX version, older gfx drivers, different firmware on GFX, force to 1x PCI-E if the card supports it, OpenGL games etc.

Have you considered that maybe the airflow in his case is different from yours causing both 8800's to fail in his case do to overheating?
Click to expand...

If you read carefully I didn't say it ruled out the gfx card. DX is identical when you switch 8800 for 7800 so that can't be it. Older gfx drivers I've tried. Again i'm going to have to say that I really don't think it's his temps because an app like speedfan logs the gpu temps and such and I don't see it going abnormally high :confused:
 
@nokoff:
1) Easy, tiger... We're just trying to help...
2) How did you rule out the graphics cards? It seems that you IMPLICATED the cards!
3) Also, perhaps there's some kind of inaccurate temperature reading?
4) Tried extra cooling (open case, fan blowing on it)?
5) Just because DX installation stayed the same doesn't mean it's not an issue. You need to try a different DX version with the 8800
6) Did you try OpenGL applications as suggested?
 
Also, you didn't mention whether it was a sudden thing or not. And since benchmarks and burn-in tests work perfectly fine, it points to software too. You said you tried a different hard drive and reinstalled windows, etc, but you didn't mention what games you did and didn't try ("every game" isn't terribly specific).
 
Are the 2 chassis's identical? Have you tried reversing the tests? ie plugging his hardware into your rig and attempting to induce problems?
With regards to your not thinking it's a RAM issue, it's possible that even though you've tried different modules, the timings aren't right. Even though it would seem like changing motherboards would rule this out, the timings could be JUST on the stability fringe, causing intermittent errors
 
Another thing: what were the specs on the "cheapie" motherboard you tried from matrix? And during the transplant, did you run it from the same case?
 
Wow, nasty one to trouble shoot. Good luck.
But going on what has been said, seems like GPU getting too hot - although that would probably cause the driver to crash rather than machine to shut down.
Very odd problem.
 
"@nokoff:
1) Easy, tiger... We're just trying to help..."
- My apologies, I don't mean to be rude or ungrateful, it may just be my frustration with the matter that has gotten the better of me.

I rule out his gfx card because it works fine in my system. So even if it is a combination of factors it is not the gfx card alone.

I've tried extra cooling.

The DX installation I doubt because if it was directx the games wouldn't work/initialize at all most probably. Not work for a little while and then cut out.

If I'm not mistaken Performance Test may use openGL in it's benchmarks, i stand under correction. Otherwise I'm not sure what I would try.

"Also, you didn't mention whether it was a sudden thing or not"
- It was fairly sudden. The entire configuration worked for a period of about 1-2 months. And then it started with the system shutting off for seemingly no apparent reason completely at random (not only in games etc.) and now it seems to have "developed" into this.
 
sn3rd said:
Are the 2 chassis's identical? Have you tried reversing the tests? ie plugging his hardware into your rig and attempting to induce problems?
With regards to your not thinking it's a RAM issue, it's possible that even though you've tried different modules, the timings aren't right. Even though it would seem like changing motherboards would rule this out, the timings could be JUST on the stability fringe, causing intermittent errors
Click to expand...

Although I've said before that our rigs are almost identical and such I'm more and more inclined to believe that maybe his PSU is just not sufficient for his rig. Yes although it's the same as mine etc etc. I can only come to this conclusion. It's the only thing that would explain the problem whilst covering all the bases.

a) That's why swapping 8800s wouldn't work
b) That's why exchaning other hardware wouldn't work
c) And finally I believe that it just may be the load of the asus motherboard on his PSU that "pushes it over the edge" and why the cheapie motherboard works fine with the rest of the components even though many expert forums i've consulted on the matter claim the the power drawn from a high end mobi is only a few dozen watts more than a run of the mill board. So hold your thumbs for me as I try to invest in a 750watt enermax or the likes to try and solve the problem. I just really hope that it is because otherwise it will be money wasted.
 
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