Computer Rebooting When Playing Games

[Home Built]

Recently my machine started to restart itself on its own but only while playing graphics intensive games. The games causing the restart problems are Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and Sim City 4 and Chronicals of Riddick Escape from Butchers Bay. I noticed that the case was getting excessively warm. I removed the side cover and found that the heat was coming from the PSU.
My System:
AMD Athlon XP3200 Barton (2199MHZ Clock Speed)
Chaintech 7NJL6 MB
1Gig Corsair PC3200 Value Select
MSI 6600GT AGP Video
200 Gig Western Digital Caviar
Toshiba 16X SD-1912
Benq 16X DVD+/- RW

I have an Antec 430 TruePower PSU

Could my PSU be too small for my system?
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[misterv]

I'm having the same problem and wondering the same thing. My PSU is 300W, what's yours? Also be sure to uncheck the box in Control Panel|System|Advanced|Startup and Recovery Settings|Automatically restart

If it's checked you won't know if you are getting a blue screen of death (BSOD) or your computer is just rebooting. If you are getting a BSOD, the problem is likely not to be a bad PSU as the kernel is still alive enough to catch the error. Whereas, if you still aren't getting a BSOD, and it still just restarts, it could very well be the PSU amongst a multitude of other things.

Other things to do are to run memory tests/processor tests to see if it happens when certain blocks of memory are accessed. I checked mine and that doesn't seem to be the problem. You can find some helpful diagnostics on the UltimateBootCd 3.3 here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4019.html

other than that, I don't know as I'm having the same problem as you are having. Of course mine are with lesser games since I only have a radeon xpress 200. I guess I may have to suck it up and spend the money for a PSU to see.

If you do get a PSU do makesure that you are looking for one with a good average sustained wattage and not just a maximum peak. Anandtech tomshardware etc have reviews on what PSUs are up to the challenge.

 

[spherrod]

It does sound like it could be a PSU problem - I had similar issues when mine started to fail. Run things like memtest first and if that all comes back clear then try another PSU

 

[robphelan]

PSU was my problem. had the stock PSU with my Aspire Q-Pack. Changed it out - no more problems running BF2.

 

[Home Built]

When I first built this machine over a year ago it had a restart problem. I removed a 500 watt generic PSU and installed the Antec TruePower 430 because I thought the generic unit might be a bit weak. Replacing the PSU didn't fix the restart problem at that time. After running Memtest386 I found my gig (2x512) of brand new Corsair Dual Channel Value Select memory was bad. Newegg gladly replaced the defective memory with a new set that tested and ran perfectly when I first installed them. Before this I had never had bad memory in any machine I built and I thought what are the odds of getting 2 bad sets of memory?


Well, I just finished running Memtest on the replacement Corsair memory and in the first 32 minutes it showed 82 errors.
One thing I was concerned about also was that it displayed the CAS at 3-3-3-8. Besides the errors being the probable cause of my restarts, isn't the 8 a bit high for even cheap Corsair memory?

Also now that I've received 2 bad matched sets of Corsair Memory (I know they have a lifetime warranty) I want to replace them in this particular machine with something a bit better . Does anyone have any suggestions?
I would like to get at least a gig of dual channel PC3200 DDR but would like to keep it under $200.00

 

[Home Built]

I ordered this Memory from Newegg to replace the defective memory in my system.
Is this as good as the ratings give it?

OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail
Model #: OCZ4001024ELDCPER2-K
Item #: N82E16820146890