Random Reboots / Crashes in 3d games

[Thooms]

Hello. I was wondering if you can help me. My computer likes rebooting when running mor edemanding 3d games. it seems to happen at whatever res. i run at (640 x 480 up to 1280 x 1024). Whatever i do with the OpenGL/D3D settings, games like MOHAA and 4x4 Evo crash. Nothing is overclocker or tweaked - and at full load the cpu temp is about 56-58 (too high?).It is not after i do a certain thing - it seems to do it randomly. My PC spec is:

Athlon XP2100+
512 PC2700 DDR
350W PSU
ATI Radeon 9500
DX 9.0a
Plently of Cooling
MSI NForce2 IGP (MS 6570, K7N2G)

One thing that i can think may be the problem, is that i have too many fans (4x 80mm) in the case, and when the cpu speeds up it thinks it has been told to reset, but that is just a theory.

Any Ideas?

[Urban_Squrill]

Your heatsink may not be sitting on there right. The same thing happened to me.


Welcome to TechIMO!

[Dax_Brandy]

Nod @ Urban_Squrill. It's probably a heat problem.

[Thooms]

Thanks. Is that CPU, or Northbrige?

[muno]

Instability can happen if either of the heatsinks are not seated right.

However, I'm leaning towards insufficient psu instead of heat. AMD processor would crash the system if the hsf was inproperly seated even without stress
-M

[Thooms]

Yes, i agree muno. The fans are quite cheap and 2 of them have LEDs in them The system will run for about 20 hours, just for doig work on. This morning, i disconnected the two led ones, and the system ran 4x4 evo no probs for 6 hours

Thanks for the help all, but any other ideas would be welcome

[DanU]

Are the fans getting power off the motherboard? Mobo fan connectors only supply a limited amount of power. Excessive power draw can affect stability. Try connecting them to a drive power connector instead.

What brand is your power supply? Some cheapo manufacturers of power supplies falsely advertise their wattage, seen here .

[Thooms]

The Power Supply is an "Eagle" one. The fans all run direct off the PSU. All the Heastsinks are getting warm, which suggests to me that they are not causing the problem, because heat is getting tranfered to them. On the PSU, the the 3.3V output is rated at 28A, and for a 2100 to be chucking out 80+ watts of heat would be quite an achievment in standard tune, but then, as you say, there is a possibility that it is lying