New system = Fubar! Help please!

[Ghostnade]

Ok, just finished building my 1st Mid range gaming Pc....1st few weeks everything worked perfectly fine, but recently i have been getting random restarts when playing games (BF2)

Specs:

Intel Core2Duo E8400 @3.0Ghz 1333Mhz (not overclocked, Stock cooling)

Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3 Intel P43

Mhel 600watt PSU

Kingston Hyper X PC28500 1066Mhz (2x2gb) (running at 800Mhz, auto)

896MB EVGA GTX 260 SSC 55nm, 2304MHz GDDR3, GPU 675 MHz, Shader 1458 MHz, 216 Cores (factory overclocked)

LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW OEM drive

500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar Blue, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms



before i made my purchases made sure everything was compatible, made sure i very good cooling

Antec 300 case (Optional fans, all used up x2 Enermax 120mm twister, 1x 140mm Antec tricool, 1x 120mm antec tricool, 1x 120mm Akasa)

so overheating is out of the way.
-(i left side panel open and tried running a game again, but still occured a random reset)
-(checked CPU Fan/heatsink, was installed correctly)
-(tried some silverartic thermal paste, still no change)


i thought it was the memory.
-(ran modules individually, but same reset happened during gameplay)
-(ran memtest86, no errors)
-(tried reseating RAM modules, still nothing)
-(swapped RAM modules around and changed slots, still nothing)

thought the CPU had failed
-(ran other CPU intensive programs, i.e: 3dmark vantage, 3DMark06, no resets)
-(did some video encoding, no reset)

i thought it was the PSU (since it was an unknown brand i bought 4years ago)
-( tried another PSU from my brothers computer OCZ 650watt, tried gaming again and had the reset)

i then turned to my motherboard
-(checked for swelling of capacitors, non)
-(installed all available motherboard spacers)

i scanned the forums for other threads of build troubles before posting here, but i still can't find a solution.

i have a feeling its something wrong with the motherboard because after the 5th reset, it turned off and on 4times in a row before it posted.

is there any other tests i can carry out to find the source of the problem?

all help would be appreciated

PS: all components are at stock settings apart from the factory overclocked evga GTX 260 GPU, so comments regarding ''getting aftermarket coolers'' is out of the question, i'm a student and can't afford unnecessary expenditures.

 

[fordypaul]

I love BF2 but its a troubling game, I assume you have all the patches, have you gone for the latest beta? (I did while trying win 7 RC and i still got random loading boots).

Your newly found restarts are a new one for me tho, boots from server seem a "feature of the game"!

 

[Ghostnade]

I love BF2 but its a troubling game, I assume you have all the patches, have you gone for the latest beta? (I did while trying win 7 RC and i still got random loading boots).

Your newly found restarts are a new one for me tho, boots from server seem a "feature of the game"!

yea Bf2 is an awesome game thats why i'm still playing it 4years later LOL...

yes, all patches and drivers installed! what baffles me, is that everything was working perfectly fine for weeks, but just started shutdown (resetting) for no reason :S....i searched on google and people having the same trouble seems to be reaching the thousands, yet all seem to have varied problems...... from PSU's to CPU's

i just want to pin point the issue so i can sort it out ASAP

 

[Ghostnade]

any ideas anyone?

 

[Mattus]

Perhaps the GPU isn't stable? Some of these 'stock overclocked' graphics boards have trouble running at the overclocked settings. I would use RivaTuner to knock 100Mhz off the core, shader and memory clocks, then test again.

 

[alternate_UK]

So you can run a program that puts the cpu under constant 100% load and it is fine but once you start BF2 it goes BSOD?

Any other game or just BF2?

Either way it sounds like the GPU.

 

[AdladUK]

Seems like the one thing you haven't tried is the hard drive. It's possible that there is some corrupt Windows file that is forcing a reset when you play games etc.

If possible install a cheap hard drive and format it. Then install BF2 and see if it still restarts. If it does then you know 100% it's hardware based and most probably either your CPU or GPU. If not then you can put it down to software (or your hard drive) and act accordingly.

 

[Nocky24]

Seems like the one thing you haven't tried is the hard drive. It's possible that there is some corrupt Windows file that is forcing a reset when you play games etc.

If possible install a cheap hard drive and format it. Then install BF2 and see if it still restarts. If it does then you know 100% it's hardware based and most probably either your CPU or GPU. If not then you can put it down to software (or your hard drive) and act accordingly.

I'd try reinstalling your OS for starters and start fresh to make sure its not OS related. Then try different gpu drivers out. If that doesn't work it looks to me like its a hardware issue with your gpu. Do other games suffer this problem? and what are your gpu temps?

 

[Ghostnade]

So you can run a program that puts the cpu under constant 100% load and it is fine but once you start BF2 it goes BSOD?

Any other game or just BF2?

Either way it sounds like the GPU.

My system only rebooted when playing BF2. then Americas Army 3.0 started to reboot my pc, then COD4...now today as i started a web browser it rebooted and from on, i cant even boot into windows anymore without it rebooting...it has gotten worst...

(using my old system now)

 

[Ghostnade]

I'd try reinstalling your OS for starters and start fresh to make sure its not OS related. Then try different gpu drivers out. If that doesn't work it looks to me like its a hardware issue with your gpu. Do other games suffer this problem? and what are your gpu temps?

i tried this, 1st uninstall the GTX drivers (all), then installed the original drivers that came with the card....i tried BF2 again, but this time it rebooted while loading a map, now my system can't even boot windows without resetting...

i guess this narrows it down to the PSU and GFX card, i'm i right?

or are the motherboard and CPU still suspects?