Computer keeps crashing and then rebooting

Hi all. Ok never done the forum thing b4 and I hope someone can help? I have a new comp set up which has a Nvidia GF 7050 F -MV quad1333 mother board with pentium R duo core 3.4 cpu. with 4gb of ram running vista. A sata HD and a ATI x1650 graphics card. The problem is when Im in an online game the comp crashes and reboots. Its an old game which is run in low graphics which is command and conquer zero hour some 6 years old. I do not think its the video card because I have tried another video card and it does the same with the on board chip which is a top of the range graphics chip short of a good graphics card. There is only a 80gb sata HD besides. So I am thinking that either the power supply is insufficient or the cpu is overheating. If it is the power supply I guess I can change it but its a 450 watt supply and surely this is sufficient? if its the cpu overheating what can I do>? this did not happen when i incorrectly put the cpu fan cable on the system fan plug on the motherboard it ran 100 rpm more? Could I just leave that plugged in permanently? It does the same on xp and vista. what you guys think?

 

So you're saying that when the CPU fan was spinning faster, the game didn't crash? Fan headers on motherboards usually have the same output, so it shoudn't really spin faster on a different header, but maybe a little more voltage is going to one header over another. You should check the BIOS and make sure that the fan speed isn't being limited. Many new BIOSes have settings where you can set the fan speed according to temperature thresholds. Since the CPU fan was faster in the other header, I would think that the BIOS does have a speed limiting setting; that's why it spins faster when connected to a different header; the different header has no temp/speed controls. I recommend to gamers that the CPU fan spin at a minimum of 75% all the time, and 100% any time the CPU temp goes over 55c. 100rpm increase in fan speed really isn't that much when you consider a CPU fan spins at over 3000rpm on average (this can vary greatly depending on heat sink/fan make and model). Have you taken temp readings from the video card? Have checked the video card fan speeds? Is the video card fan clean? The x1650 is a fairly light duty and lower end card these days and it could be that you're overworking it. I'm pretty sure that ATI Tray Tools has a fan speed and temp monitoring option and it will log the speed/temp and you can review it and see when and if the temps get too high....

..... and welcome to Major Geeks! :wave :major

 

Hi and thanks for your speed response. Unfortunately the problem still exists. I have gone into the bios and attempted to increase the fan speed. It was a choice of 2 settings - quiet ot performance? I presume that the performance mode is the higher fan speed so I set it to this and yes I did save the settings on exit but the fan still runs at around 2100rpm. The sys fan does run some 400 rpm faster at 2500rpm or so my hardware monitor tells me. I did install the video card application you advised. When I am in the game I get some numbers at the top of the screen that range from red 9 to 15 on game boot up to yellow 30 to 35 when I in the game online lobby but I am not sure what this means? I have run command and conquer zero hour on a Ks7sa board (Nearly 7 years old and still is a workhorse now) with an Athlon 2400+ and 1GB of SDRam and a 200w power supplywith absolutely no problems like this? Any other ideas?

Thanks

 

Also I just noticed you said that the CPU fan should be running at around 3000rpm. Mine is definately running at around 2100rpm could this be the problem?

 

did u try changing the rams?
try to remove them all then switching between them, it could be that one is bad, and making the rest look bad...

OR

your motherboard has a problem...which is seeming when there is a lot of traffic on a specific bus...

 

Ok I tried each stick of 2gb ram in turn still happening but system becomming very unstable now. I tried each stick of 2gb ram in turn and still same problem. I uninstalled the ATI video card because the screen was lighting up with random colours prettier than the 4th July. Im now using the onboard chip. While I was tottering around in the computer I decided I would reset the cmos settings and clear the bios. I FOUND THAT THERE WAS NO JUMPER PIN ON THE CMOS HEADER. Could this be causing the problem. I have now reset the CMOS and placed the jumper on pins 1 and 2 for normal operation. At least it is stable at the moment and I can stay on the comp for a bit. I will try and see how this bears out.

 

sorry for the obvious questios, but sometimes it helps .... didu think of software related issues? coz if removing almost all hardware didnt solve it... it might be it...
btw not always there is a jumper on cmos, it can be left cleared for normal staus, depends on the manufacturer