Hello there,

I'll keep this short. While playing certain games my PC randomly restarts in the middle of the game with no error messages, no BSOD, nothing. So far it only does it when playing EA Sports Madden NFL 07, EA Sports NHL 07, and Counter-Strike: Source. I can run Counter-Strike 1.6, Pro-Evolution Soccer 6, and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, fine all day long.

I've tried googling my problem but don't have much luck, i've tried posting on support forums but don't get many answers or a resolution. Has anyone got any ideas?

I've checked my event viewer, no error messages.

My system specs are as follows...

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Barton
768MB DDR Corsair RAM
128MB Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 pro
250GB IDE Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
Creative Soundblaster Audigy Platinum (recently put in but i had the problems before anyway)

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

P.S. If knowone has any ideas, does anyone know any good forum support sites to try? ta

I'd put my money on it being your gfx card.

Try completely un-installing it and using a driver removal tool, then put the latest drivers back on.

Though of course it could be a number of things.

Yeah, i was also thinking it might be my gfx card. It's quite an old one now. Could it be that it's over-heating? I can play NHL/Madden for about 5-10 minutes before it restarts, but then if i try and go back into the game after the restart it immediately restarts again.

I always use the catalyst removal tool to remove old drivers, and i manually double-check registry. I only just updated my gfx drivers, but i think there's a new set out so i'll update again, see if that helps.

Cheers.

yup sounds like graphics card overheating

mgiht melt if you keep it up

LOL, bought it off Grant a few months back. Guess it's finally given up the ghost.

I'll put my old 9600 back in, see if that fixes the problem.

However, if it IS over-heating, surely PES6 and splinter cell chaos theory wouldn't run?

Probably because the games that are working are older ones / require less work by the card. Is the fan clogged up with dust ? Does the fan even spin anymore ?

If it aint the card you could try running dxdiag see if there is any problems there or any incompatibilities. Chances are that its your g card over heating though like already said.

I've checked dxdiag, all good.

I'll update my gfx drivers as Mani suggested, then i'll check my gfx card fan, and try my old gfx card.

Cheers fellas.

Hopefully this solves the problem.

Currently downloading the free basic edition of 3D mark 06 too, gonna run it and see what happens, see if my PC restarts or my gfx card starts cooking, lol.

The fan on the 9800 wasn't dusty and still worked. However, I ran 3D mark 06 on the 9800 and it didn't last long, it was only getting around 4-5 FPS on the game scenarios, then my PC restarted. I then immediately went back into 3D mark and it wouldn't even start that time. So i've put my old 9600 card in and that got further then the 9800 did on 3D mark, all-be-it only getting 0-1 FPS, lol. 3D mark did crash with the 9600, but didn't restart, but i think that's because it was only getting 0 FPS, rather then another problem.

Going to try source, NHL, etc. see how it holds up.

Hurrah! Seems to have fixed the problem. Source runs now, haven't tested NHL or Madden yet cos for some reason when in-game it won't stop scrolling down, lol, will have to sort that out, probably re-install them both.

Contemplating spending about £70 on a half decent AGP card, like a X1300 or something. Haven't got the money to completely upgrade to a PCI-e system. Worth it you reckon?

Dunno tbh, your choice

Ok. Cheers for your help lads, all sorted.

I'm thinking either this as the cheaper option...

Novatech ATI Radeon X1600 PRO

Or this as the slightly more expensive option...

HIS ATI Radeon X1300 ICEQ TURBO