PC gaming issues

[Tr3vor]

I have a new computer with:

AMD Sempron 1.7Ghz

Nvidia GeForce 6600

1GB ram

225 watt power supply (rigged it from a smaller computer)

Windows XP home edition

 

when I play Enemy Territory Quake Wars and COD4 on it, it sometimes freezes, and after about 5 seconds reboots the computer.

 

I was wondering if it was my slow 1.7Ghz processor that cant handle it, or if it is the power supply with not enough wattage.

 

Does anyone know?

Edited July 15, 2010 by Tr3vor

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

I have a new computer with:

AMD Sempron 1.7Ghz

Nvidia GeForce 6600

1GB ram

225 watt power supply (rigged it from a smaller computer)

Windows XP home edition

 

when I play Enemy Territory Quake Wars and COD4 on it, it sometimes freezes, and after about 5 seconds reboots the computer.

 

I was wondering if it was my slow 1.7Ghz processor that cant handle it, or if it is the power supply with not enough wattage.

 

Does anyone know?

 

Sounds like a very good chance it is an underpowered Power supply, when you run these games it pushes the graphics card taxing your Power supply.

That CPU is certainly slowing things down but not likely causing your issues.

[Tr3vor]

I have a new computer with:

AMD Sempron 1.7Ghz

Nvidia GeForce 6600

1GB ram

225 watt power supply (rigged it from a smaller computer)

Windows XP home edition

 

when I play Enemy Territory Quake Wars and COD4 on it, it sometimes freezes, and after about 5 seconds reboots the computer.

 

I was wondering if it was my slow 1.7Ghz processor that cant handle it, or if it is the power supply with not enough wattage.

 

Does anyone know?

 

Sounds like a very good chance it is an underpowered Power supply, when you run these games it pushes the graphics card taxing your Power supply.

That CPU is certainly slowing things down but not likely causing your issues.

 

 

The games run just fine, But I've never seen a ps just shut the computer off like that, any recommended wattages?

[S1500]

Try to borrow a P/S first & use that before buying anything.

 

Take note I had a PC that ran great until several months ago until it started shutting down randomly after about 10 minutes. Eventually, I just replaced everything but the video card. An excuse to upgrade.

[Tr3vor]

Try to borrow a P/S first & use that before buying anything.

 

 

Its a little late for that now, my dad went ahead and got a 400W power supply (isn't that a bit overkill? or is it good)

 

the biggest one I could have borrowed is from my friend, it was 232W, so it wasn't that big of a difference.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Try to borrow a P/S first & use that before buying anything.

 

 

Its a little late for that now, my dad went ahead and got a 400W power supply (isn't that a bit overkill? or is it good)

 

the biggest one I could have borrowed is from my friend, it was 232W, so it wasn't that big of a difference.

 

Better MORE wattage then not enough. It will only draw from it what is required! Now if that does not fox the problem, how well is the ventilation? I wonder if it is an over-heating issue? Did you build it form the parts listed? To little or even too much thermal paste between the CPU / Heatsink can cause an issue. By the way I learned a long time ago the importance of a good quality power supply with enough wattage. It certainly can cause power off and reboots if it is being over stressed and/or failing, I learned that the hardware and it took a motherboard along with it.

[Tr3vor]

Better MORE wattage then not enough. It will only draw from it what is required! Now if that does not fox the problem, how well is the ventilation? I wonder if it is an over-heating issue? Did you build it form the parts listed? To little or even too much thermal paste between the CPU / Heatsink can cause an issue. By the way I learned a long time ago the importance of a good quality power supply with enough wattage. It certainly can cause power off and reboots if it is being over stressed and/or failing, I learned that the hardware and it took a motherboard along with it.

 

I didn't build it, its a Compaq Presario sr1603wm, and someone just stuck a Nvidia 6600 in it. I put about 700 mb ram to make it 1gb.

 

is it ok to use the computer now, or should I wait to get the new ps?

Edited July 15, 2010 by Tr3vor

[MN12BIRD]

Yeah a good PSU with enough continuous wattage to power your machine is the most important part in your whole computer. When you push a switching power supply to the limit you can get dirty power ripple in the power output and this is hard on EVERY part in your machine. It's not worth killing a motherboard or video card by running an insufficient power supply. The old 6600GT's recommended a minimum 300 Watt PSU. Running that off a 225 Watt PSU is just asking for trouble!

 

400 Watt should be perfect. I hope this solves your problems. Like someone mentioned when you start doing 3D and pushing the video card in a game it will draw more power as needed. So it's no wonder your games would crash before.

 

If it's not power related it might be heat. You can check for excess dust, bad fans or dried out thermal compounds. You can even get software to monitor temps if you aren't sure.

 

Also make sure you have the latest video card drivers.

Edited July 15, 2010 by MN12BIRD

[Tr3vor]

Yeah a good PSU with enough continuous wattage to power your machine is the most important part in your whole machine. When you push a switching power supply to the limits and you get dirty power ripple in your output this is hard on EVERY part in your machine. The old 6600GT's recommended a minimum 300 Watt PSU. Running that off a 225 Watt PSU is just asking for trouble!

 

400 Watt should be perfect. I hope this solves your problems. Like someone mentioned when you start doing 3D and pushing the video card in a game it will draw more power as needed. So it's no wonder your games would crash before.

 

If it's not power related it might be heat. You can check for excess dust, bad fans or dried out thermal compounds. You can get software to monitor temps if you aren't sure.

 

Also make sure you have the latest video card drivers.

 

 

I already got the latest drivers, I like better performance. I guess I shouldn't be playing games on this right now then... I'm pretty sure this is power related, this thing has plenty of ventalation, We even got an extra fan in there.

[Tr3vor]

If it runs Half Life 2 without crashing, would it be ok if I played HL2 on it? or is that still bad?

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

If it runs Half Life 2 without crashing, would it be ok if I played HL2 on it? or is that still bad?

 

Honestly considering the issues you have had I would not chance it, wait for the new power supply or you might really regret it.

[Tr3vor]

Thanks for all of your help guys, About next monday I'll get the PS and will see how that works. then I will finnaly play my games on a decent computer.

[Rybags]

Also make sure you turn off the "Automatic Restart" in the Computer Properties/Advanced/Startup and Recovery panel.

 

But yeah... the PSU would be struggling. You can get reasonably priced decent ones these days, may as well grab something rated 500-600 Watts then it'll still be usable if you decide to build a more modern setup.

[mbd30]

I would also check for a heat issue. You have such a slow processor by today's standards and so little ram that your computer is going to struggle mightily with games. I also notice that my computer runs hotter during the summer. But we don't use air conditioning much during the day.

 

Try downloading the SpeedFan utility and see if your computer is running hot.

[Austin]

I would personally say get a larger PS, and if you have the dough, get yourself a better video card.. You probably shouldn't be playing those games to begin with on a 6600.. I'm surprised they run at any decently-playable framerate at all.

Edited July 15, 2010 by Austin

[Tr3vor]

I would personally say get a larger PS, and if you have the dough, get yourself a better video card.. You probably shouldn't be playing those games to begin with on a 6600.. I'm surprised they run at any decently-playable framerate at all.

 

 

bolth of the game have this card in the minimum requirements. I can play COD4 with AA2x, Shadows, Specular mapping, Ragdoll, Bullet impacts, with normal textures on ultra and the other 2 texure settings on high, around 25-30 FPS @ 800x600

 

Its good enough for me, I played these games without complaint with a Intell moble express chipset thing with like 64 dedicated vram...

 

I'll probably try the speedfan thing after I get a new PS

Edited July 15, 2010 by Tr3vor

[Tr3vor]

Just got the PS, it turns out its 550W not 400W, holy cow. anyway, I'll get back to you all on if it's the problem.

 

 

[+save2600]

550W power supply is quite large. Real problem here is that you're trying to game on a PeeCee, using Windoze and expecting it to work consistently

 

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this. Just kidding you guys! Good luck tracking down the problem. If it's not the power supply (which I highly doubt it is), or a cooling issue, I'd suspect one of your RAM modules is bad. Quite common for RAM to fail these days, so not out of the realm of possibilities. Especially if you bought said RAM off ePay from some Asian company that swears they ship from LA or NY and it's generic

[Tr3vor]

I got the power supply intalled and its working very well. We also figured out that the Video card's fan was completely wasted, so we put another one on it. So far, I've only played HL2:DM on it and it works.

Actually, there was this one extra stick of ram I tried puting in it, but it produced glitches in the bios.

 

Thanks for the input guys