My computer doesnt want me to play games

[Ixtab]

Yeah, I have tried many different drivers, and none have helped the situation.

It seems like nobody has any more ideas, but here is the other reason I am thinking it is software, not hardware: Some games I will play fine for hours, and it is fine, but one day it will randomly do the reset. Then AFTER it as done it the first time, it will start to do it more frequently, even after a few minutes into playing.

It seems to me like when it happens the first tome, something gets corrupted, and thats why it does it more often after.... but I have reinstalled drivers, reinstalled games... even reinstalled windows, and it hasnt helped. I am really stumped, so any ideas, however odd they may be would be appreciated.

[One_Medic_Army]

Well, you can always back up all your steam games, then do a complete wipe and reinstall, see if that helps.

[bluntspoon]

Power Supply. Power Supply. Power Supply.

Buy another from somewhere you can return it if it turns out to not be that. Newegg, Amazon, locally....

I'll echo everything Alizee said. Buy the most expensive overbuilt PSU you can. Pay so much it hurts. I like Corsair also but there are several others. Think of all the grief you're going through and recognize that it probably would not have happened if you has spent an extra $40 when you bought your last PSU.

[Entropy]

So, a little while ago, I installed APB. Pretty fun game, but my computer started resetting itself while playing. I did a ton of troubleshooting, with nothing really helping. I then found out that Bad Company 2 also makes my computer reset now. I used to be able to play it fine, and havent really changed anything since I was last able to play it.
After being completely stumped, and taking a break from trying to figure it out, I started to play Titan Quest again, and even it started resetting my comp as well. The requirements for TQ are pretty low, and I have played it often in the past, so this is really starting to make me wonder.

Things I have tried:
Drivers, drivers, drivers..... Everything is up to date, and I tried many different older video drivers. Occasionally after installing fresh drivers, APB works for a few hours, but after that first crash, I can usually only play for a couple of minutes.
Temperatures.... I have been monitoring my GPU and CPU temps, and everything is always in the green.
Tests... Memtest and Prime95 primarily. All tests came out just fine.
Power supply... I did get a new HD fairly recently, so I thought that maybe that extra bit of power was too much, even though the PSU is fairly new. I disconnected some things - DVDrom, one HDD, some fans.... But that didn't help either.
Various other 'fixes'.... When it seemed to be just APB, I tried a bunch of random stuff from the forums to try and fix it for that game, but now that it is happening in other games too, I am not sure if any of those fixes matter at all.

If anyone has any ideas, feel free to let me know. This is getting pretty annoying, and I am running out of ideas.

You have eliminated memory as a culprit, which would be about #3 on my list of things to check. Just to be sure, run Prime95 while you're at work, at least 6-8 hours, and then verify you have 0 errors to ensure 100% stability of your CPU and Memory.

Things that can cause your problem:

1. Bad motherboard (for any number of reasons) - these are the most frustrating, I know as I've had 3 bad motherboards in my time and it is the most frustrating, every time.
2. Bad/insufficient Power Supply - This can also be elusive and hard to diagnose. When errors are squirrely and hard to pin down either this or #1 are usually the culprit.
3. Bad Memory - but you've already ruled this out.
4. Bad HDD (ie corrupt pagefile) and/or bad HDD controller on your mobo (see #1 above) thus the corrupted data, but this shouldn't cause reboots like you've been experiencing.


Also, run a full system virus-scan.

All else fails, reformat and reinstall. If it is still squirrely, then you either have a bad bios flash, or a hardware issue as listed above.

To fix #1, only thing I can tell you is to buy a new MOBO and switch it out, only way to know, sorry bro.

#2 - almost as bad as swapping out a mobo, pain in the butt

[Ixtab]

Well... I finally managed to get my hands on another PSU yesterday to test it out.... aaand, you guys are right, that does seem to be the issue.

I was really hoping that it wasnt the issue, but as it was pointed out to me, I can only live in denial for so long. heh. I can game for a few days with this PSU, but after I take it back, I'm not sure what I can do about it... hopefully its still under warranty or something.

[One_Medic_Army]

Look on the bright side, compared to swapping the motherboard or the CPU, swapping the PSU is much easier to do.