unexpected shutdown while playing games (2nd try)

[Guest]

My PC (P4 1.8Ghz, Win XP Pro, 512 Mb RAM) keeps shutting down unexpectedly,
usually with a loud 3 second beep from the external speakers. This only
happens while playing games (Unreal, various versions, LOTR: Battle for
Middle Earth, GTA 2 through San Andreas, Galactic Battlegrounds). It does
not crash while using other applications, such as MS Word, IE6, etc., or
while idle. My antivirus is current, I had an extra video card (with 256MB
ram) which I swapped out ‘cuz I had the time. Video drivers are current, I
even rolled back to former version, no luck. Dxdiag shows no errors, running
DirectX 9.0c. The interior is clean with little dust. Heat hasn’t been an
issue in the past, but maybe it is now? If a possibility, how do I monitor
the interior heat? The event log shows: The process winlogon.exe has
initiated the restart of NEWPC for the following reason: Other (Unplanned);
Minor Reason: 0x0; Shutdown Type: power off

Sorry about reposting this, but I have more information and was hoping
someone had an idea, and my previous post seemed to be lost in thread limbo.
BTD

 

[BigJim]

this is just a guess but it could be your power supply, I had one do the
same thing. I changed it out
and the games run fine now. It only did it playing games.

 

[Guest]

Unreal Tournament on 512mb of ram...XP barely functions with 512,try
increasing
youre ram memory amount.On line-gaming sucks up ram...

 

[Guest]

Yah, I'm thinking power supply too. Lack of any error message, suddeness of
shutdown, has been that in the past. I've fixed strange problems like this
before thru a new PS. I'll update this thread with the results in a day or
two. Thanks, BTD.

 

[Guest]

Problem resolved without replacing the PS. I found my CPU fan was barely
turning, and upon removing it found my CPU's heatsink totally clogged with
dirt/dust. A new heatsink/fan combo solved the problem. Thanks again for
suggestions. BTD