PC shutdown when playing games

Yo sup ?
As title suggests, my PC shuts down when I play any game that's more advanced than Warcraft 3 (Yup doesn't shut down when I play WC3).
This problem started when i played Section 8 2, see when I played the game for the first time the PSU BLEW up! (Yea like smoke and funny smell of something burning).
I replaced it with a more advanced one and this is where the problem started, games which worked before the accident now no longer work !
Here are my PC specs:

My PSU:
Old one was Spacewalker.
New one is :
Smart ATX
Switching power supply
Model ATX_250w_PIV
Real ability 250 watt
Thank you for taking your time to solve my problem.

 

Bump

 

Exploding PSU's are never a good thing, the problems you are experiencing could be a number of things, especially considering the PSU burnout.

The speccy screen shot you posted, I'm assuming those temps are while you are idle?

First thing to check is what temps you are hitting while gaming, open Speccy and then fire up a game, play it for a minute or 2 (3-5 if you can) and then minimize it and record the temps.

If your PC is powering down 100% I would hazzard a guess it's your CPU overheating, but could be GPU.

These are first thoughts and first things to eliminate.

Lets see the results from this and then we can go from there.

 

I can't even do that ... When I play Deux EX: Human Revolution 1 sec into gameplay = insta shutdown. In the cinamatic scene am fine once gameplay starts insta shutdown.

 

Oh, well that's not good.

If it's only when you play a game then clearly one of your major hardware parts is having issues, at least to my knowledge.

Wait, reading your specs, you bought a 250 watt PSU?
With a Phenom x4, 4GB of RAM and a 1GB GTS 250.

Actually scratch everything I've said so far, in my honest opinion I would say that your PSU is no where near powerful enough to run your system.

You probably have enough to browse the web but as soon as your CPU, RAM and GPU start pulling power, it simply can't supply it so your system shuts down to protect itself and prevent your PSU burning our and/or taking the rest of your system with it.

Yeah, I just ran your system through this...

http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

We always take the results with a dose of salt, it says my system needs a 380 watt PSU, I bought a 600w.

You have a 250 watt PSU and it says you need a 314 watt not including multi drives or fans.

I would honestly be looking at a minimum of 750 watt and GOOD quality, probably $100 plus...

Your CPU alone requires 125 watt.

So, in short, if I'm reading correctly, you have a 250 watt PSU, which is kind of like trying to pull a 10,000lb trailer with a smart car.

You need a better PSU.

 

I was just about to say this.

The difference between a mediocre PSU and a quality PSU is that a quality one shuts itself off to prevent burn-out. A mediocre/bad one burns up. I would buy at least a 450W PSU for that system of yours, considerably more if you want to be able to upgrade other hardware in the future.

 

I am in agreement with Nedlamer & Mimsy, you should run your system through here (this is what Nedlamer suggested), don't forget about fans, soundcards & USB devices & you should come up with a baseline to work from. Once you have that if it's say 450W, a 650W or 750W would be fine & give you breathing room if you ever decide to upgrade & contrary to popular belief more having more Watts than you need doesn't mean the PC will use more power, the PC draws exactly what it needs & no more. I suggest you go with a descent brand too, because like Mimsy said,

A burned out PSU can take multiple if not all the other hardware with it as everything is connected.

By a good brand I mean one of these:

* Antec
* CoolerMaster
* Corsair
* Thermaltake
* Zalman

They all make quality PSU's for various (market segments) level machines, they are in descending order. You should be looking for an 80 PLUS PSU really, they are much more efficient & save you money on power bills :-D They rank from 80 PLUS, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum & I think I may have seen a Titanium once or twice online.

I hope this info helps, maybe others can add to the list of good & efficient PSU's for you once you've come up with a Wattage that you need

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

I am having the same problem- GRAW 2, COD4, even old Swat 4 shut down my PC in exactly the same spot- while loading a save game.

After having the box shut down for a few hours, I was able to get back into GRAW2, and it crashed, power-off, after about 1.5 hours.

My local fix-it geeks aren't any help, unless I want to leave my PC with them for 2.5 weeks...

For months, I cannot get to the loading screen of Fallout:New Vegas. It CTDs with no error message.

I have been researching this for weeks. I have run Memtest86, the power app mentioned in this thread, various diagnostic tools that look for errors in the OS or other software. Nothing has come up.

I am running:
AMD Phenom II 965
4GB DDR3
Nvidia GTS 250 1GB (eVGA)
Win 7 Pro SP 1
Thermaltake 550W PSU

I'd think that running streaming video would also be a problem if it was the GPU. This problem came up very suddenly (except for the FO3 issue).

Any ideas?

TIA