Computer completely shuts down when playing games

[Guest]

This is driving me crazy, everything works perfectly until I try to play a
game. My computer completly shuts its self off. I have looked in the event
logs, but nothing there. I have service pack 2, but it was happening before I
updated. I have current anti virus as well as ad-aware and spybot, so no
nasties.
There is no warning that it is going to happen. It makes no difference what
sort of games, anything from simple Uno which runs in a little window through
to The Sims. Sometimes I can play a game for as long as I want with no
problems. I thought it might have been a heating issue so I had another fan
installed. I don't really know a lot about computers, so any help in
"laymans" terms would be great.

I was told that it could be my graphics something??, or driver?

I have a gigabyte motherboard if that helps at all.

Thankyou in advance

 

[Guest]

If youre running games from the on-board display adapter,you might have
problems...On board is limited to 8mb of memory for video,try an add on
video card,most start at 64mb,the top of line are at 256mb,with newest at
512mb,youre at 8mb...

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the Reply Andrew

As far as I know I am only running from on-board, but as I said even the
smallest games will crash my computer. I can play games on the internet just
fine, watch DVD's and so on.

I dont really understand what you mean, so please forgive my ignorance. Oh
and how do you know that I am at 8mb?

thanks

 

[Guest]

Have you got a grahpics card installed?

Go to Start, select Control Panal, System
Under the Hardware Tab select Device Manager, then click on Display Adapters.

 

[Guest]

Hi Richard

Im not sure if this is a graphics card, but I followed your instructions and
it has this in there:

Nvidia riva TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 pro

I checked in the drivers, and clicked on update, it downloaded an update of
some sort, so hopefully this will fix the problem (im praying)

This problem only started a while ago, I used to be able to play games fine,
and I have not made any changes, so it's really confusing??

But any information is very much appreciated.

 

[Guest]

It is, and with a bit of luck the new driver will solve your problem.

If it continues, run some checks on both your hard drive and memory to see
if there is a hardware problem. You can also try removing and replacing
memory and graphics cards, getting rid of any dust build up on them and
checking they are in the slots properly.

I know its frustrating, i've had similar problems recently.

I think (hope) i solved them in the end by replacing memory, which on one
occasion out of about 50 showed an error in the memory checker. There is a
memory checker supplied by Microsoft, have a search around the Microsoft
website.

In my experience you will be lucky to get a definitive answer from anyone so
its just a matter of changing things until the problem goes away. Just try
to eliminate software errors before fiddling around with the hardware.

Good luck and let me ( and many others) know how you get on