Also, Halflife 2 has NOT been loaded on my 1st PC
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PC KEEPS REBOOTING WHILE PLAYING GAMES
Hi All,
I have a difficult problem here.
MY system is:
Athlon 64 3200+ (overclocked to 3400+) running at 2.2Ghz
1GB RAM
6600GT Video Card
160GB IDE HDD
Win XP PRO
This PC was running fine until my son installed Half-Life 2.
Thats when I first noticed this problem.
After a while PC would just reboot.
Uninstalled Half-Life 2 but the problem is still there.
It does it on all games, Battlefield Vietnam, Need for Speed Underground 2.
It restarts while playing network games or single player games.
I have uninstalled AVG but that doesn't seem to have made any difference either.
Every time the PC reboots the event log says......
"The Windows security centre service has started"
Perhaps I should just disable this??
Any ideas guys?
Cheers
Rodger
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Answers
I know this sort of thing can happen if you don't have proper drivers installed.. make sure that your motherboard and videocard drivers are all installed, and also the proper sound drivers. Disable any onboard video and sound cards that you have in the bios so that they don't interfere.
Let us know how that goes.
does it happen other than when your playing games?
i suggest trying to set Athlon 64 back to 3200+ if your not using that much applications that area heavy in system resources it could be that the problem was already there even before and is only seen when you play games since its a bit heavy on the processor
though i agree with arkoak try a system restore first
The fact that you have an over-clocked system here could be something of a clue. I suspect that you are actually seeing an overheating problem of some form here.
This could be caused by something as simple as an accumulation of dust/fluff in your CPU or video card heatsink. Try cleaning your pc out with an air duster. For really bad cases, I sometimes use a cocktail stick to clean out the worst of the dust first (with the pc off, of course).
Hope this helps
Stuart
Hi Guys, Thanks for your suggestions.
Firstly, all the simple stuff has been done. (Check my profile). Video drivers, sound etc.
Secondly, this PC is brand new, only 1 month old if that, There is no dust I can see. :)
adrj,
>does it happen other than when your playing games?
No, It only seems to happen when playing games, but each time it happens it comes up with that error message in the system event log.
"The Windows security centre service has started"
I have disabled Windows Security Firewall monitoring, and re-enabled AVG.
I think its something to do with that based on the error message that keeps appearing in the event log at the same time the PC reboots.
I could try, not overclocking the PC but the heat is fine.
Thanks Guys
Rodger
As you know current games are big load on the PCs,
so some system get reboot when they are running games for one of the next reasons:
- The game takes all the system resources (e.g. RAM and virtaul memory).
- The game makes your processor and any part of your hardware so hot, so the system reboot (try to check if your motherboard or your processor being hot at rebooting time).
Windows did a "great" thing to eliminate their dreaded Blue Screen Of Death and they made the machine auto-reboot instead. It's likely you are blue screening and just not able to get a look at what is wrong.
Go to properties of my computer, advanced, and Startup and Recovery settings. Clear the checkbox for Automatically Restart.
Now next time it happens you can actually see the blue screen and jot down the error message. A quick google of the error message will lead you to the answer of what is wrong - You may also recognize the driver file that is the problem if that is the case.
Hi All,
Can anyone please explain why (Now that Windows Security monitoring has been turned off) Specifically the firewall monitoring, that the PC has NOT rebooted since........??
It certainly does not seem to be an overheating issue........
Also Heem14, the checkbox for auto restart was already unticked yet it still did not blue screen, just rebooted.
But that was before, now I've been playing it for 2 hours and it has not restarted.
Perhaps disabling the monitoring tool has fixed it?
Cheers
Rodger
im having this problem. the computer display slowly degraded over two weeks to finally die. i bought a new video card, but the rebooting still occured. i have subsequently found out i also had a faulty ram chip. this is indicating something may have overloaded the motherboard, but im not sure. i took faulty RAM out (i had 2 ram chips) and the computer works quite well on the remaining chip, but i am still getting reboots during gameplay, i haven't been bothered to buy new ram.
so try taking out the ram, reseating it, or try fresh ram and finally try a new video card. hope this helps.
Mmm - half life 2 uses steam (network dependent purchase verification type application), i guess it is something to do with that. Steam loves to try and connect, get updates and display advertisments any time it can.
So if turning off firewall monitoring really has fixed the problem:
I suggest updating/changing firewall software. If its windows software that was causing problems, maybe switch to kerio/zone alarm.
possibly changing settings in steam would help - see if it tries to use a specific socket/protocol...? maybe the firewall monitoring is set to a very low level e.g. recording lots of information, and steam is trying to connect all the time, hence generating lots of errors that is filling up the firewall monitoring log...
Either way, obviously, the PC shouldnt just restart. But tbh, I kind of miss the bad old days of win98 and the random restarts/ubiquitous blue screen of death... ;-)
sort of...
I had already uninstalled both Steam and Half-life 2 to try to solve this problem.
Even with both uninstalled the PC kept rebooting, however now that the Windows Firewall monitoring has been turned off the PC has not rebooted since.
This seems to me to be some weird issue with Half-life2 corrupting? the Windows Firewall monitoring? because as mentioned before the PC reboots then Every time the PC reboots the event log says......
"The Windows security centre service has started"
Now, its not rebooting............
Well, its now just rebooted again.
After 3 hours of solid game playing its done it again, with the same error message as well.....
"The Windows security centre service has started"
Once again...............its rebooted.
Would the video card take 3 hours to overheat??
I would have thought it would be fairly fast, say 10-20 mins?
I have now unclocked the CPU, its now running at normal speed.
I have also disabled Fast write in the BIOS setting as suggested by Col_H and will see how that goes.
I might throw water over it and see what happens..........:(
I had a similar problem with Windows XP. It turned out to be the graphics driver. the way to check what driver file is causing the problem is to right click "My Computer" and choose properties. Go to the advanced tab and choose "Start up and Recovery" settings. Un-tick the "Automatically Re-boot" option and next time the computer encounters the error you with get a blue screen error. This page will tell you which file(s) is causing the problem. From here you can either remove the file and the associated product or go to the manufacturer for a compatible driver. Hope this helps.
This question is not abandoned, I am still testing and waiting further ideas.
The problem still occurs, but not as much.
It simply reboots, no blue screen error and already has the latest graphics driver installed.
I have disabled numerous services in an attempt to find the answer. (Eg Auto Security updates, Virus updates etc)
However the Event log and Security log offer little or no help at all.
I am going to reload Windows to see if that fixes it. Failing that, the question can be closed but since no solution is evident at the moment then no points will be awarded unless an answer is found.
Cheers
Rodger
So the problem has recurred since you removed the overclock - we were unaware of this!
Have you carried out the cleaning as I recommended? Remember that it is normal for cpu's to be able to accept different levels of overclocking - you are dealing with (literally) microscpic differences in the cpu.
Stuart
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by: asmodeusnzPosted on 2005-07-31 at 22:16:37ID: 14567581
I should also like to add that I have another PC, which is EXACTLY the same system, same CPU (Overclocked the same), same Motherboard, video card, RAM, even the case is identical and I have no problem whatsoever with that one. Halflife 2 seems to have killed my 2nd PC?