old pc crashes in games

ineed2upgrade

ineed2upgrade

ineed2upgrade

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Joined
3 Apr 2007
Posts
338
my old old old pc seems to be crashing all the time in games and im wondering what part is failing to cause this.the pc is generally my internet machine but have some games on it so decided to give half life 2 a whirl.got about 2 mins in and it just went black screen and then rebooted.on reboot was showing cpu temp as 57 degrees c which i dont think is that high.has done this in games a fair few times now,and doesnt have to be agraphics intensive game for it to do it.

specs are(please dont laugh too loud)

p4 3.0(800fsb)
975p dfi mobo
3200ram(1gb)
80gb eide hdd
9800 pro 128mb

system is about 4 years old

any ideas?
 
well it should be capable of playing half life 2, i playd it on a much older specced system before.

57 will be you're idle temps if it's in bios, which is quite high by todays standards, but P4's are notorious for getting to hot.

try sticking a domestic fan by it or something to see if it helps.
 
Sounds like a case of overheating if ever i've seen one.

If it's the standard intel hsf it more than likely just needs taking out and blowing out all

the dust. Far better and cheaper than ditching a whole system imo, unless of course

you're just after an excuse to buy a new system :D
 
ineed2upgrade said:
well it always used to play the game ok.basically just thinking that its a bit aged and the whole thing needs binning.
Click to expand...

dont be silly post it to me.. :P

well anyway your system is more than capable of playing HL2. as already said you could be overheating. so keeping the side of your pc off while its running and checking to see if your CPU and GFX fans are spinning correctly. if they are you should check things like... are either of the heatsinks blocked with dust or are they sitting corectly and tight on the cpu and gfx card. if you have a fan on your chipset check that also. if its none of those things other solutions may be to check your PSU if you can.. they dont last forever. you may want to check your ram with memtest+86. if all that picks up nothing a clean install of windows with the most recent drivers for your system and gfx may be of use. you can also test your cpu/psu indipendantly of your gfx card with a program like orthos or prime 95. if it crashes in those tests its not our gfx card.

hope thats of some help anyway. TMS.
 
run prime95 with coretemp, and see what temps you get.

then you'll know if it is the cpu overheating.

the heatsink Thermal Paste mayhave worn out and need replacing if its old, So try reapplying thermal paste and reseating your cpu cooler.
 
it rebooted itself 4 times today when i was just surfing the net which isnt exactly cpu intensive.cleaned out the whole pc about a month ago,redid the cpu hsf and cleaned everything totally.hasnt done it for last 5 hours with pc on ??????grrrr.
i do need to upgrade though as i want to play some more upto date games like fear/crysis ect just dont want to spend lots of money atm.was thinking £500 upgrade of q6600,2gb 6400ram,p5k delux wifi,8800gt 512 and thats around £500.and maybe a 500gb sata hdd.still ona 19" crt on that system so maybe a cheap 22" widescreen.cant spend too mcuh as my car needs 4 new tyres,new discs up front and lots of bushes so thats £1000 and i onyl have £1500 to spend lol
 
since i dont know what PSU you already have and if it is worth keeping, below is a complete system for just over £500

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £139.99
(£164.49) £139.99
(£164.49)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £10.99
(£12.91) £10.99
(£12.91)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Pioneer DVR-212DBK 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
OcUK Value IP35 Pro Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £38.99
(£45.81) £38.99
(£45.81)
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £26.99
(£31.71) £26.99
(£31.71)
Sub Total : £425.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £74.53
Total : £500.44
 
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