AlbertDong
asked on
PC Shutting Itself down automatically
Wierd problem - spec of PC below:
P4 3GHz, 1GB RAM, Gigabyte GA-8PENXP Mainboard, 2 x EIDE Drives, 1 x SATA drive, Leadtek A380 5950 Graphics card, Audigy 2 soundboard.
OS - XP Professional SP1.
Directx 9.0b
In certain games, e.g. Painkiller demo the PC will just shut itself down ( that is power off ) almost as soon as the game starts. Don't really put this down to heat as other games ( FarCry ) runs fine for hours.
Tried various driver levels - from current working back to some earlier versions of Nvidia driver sets but to no avail. It's not a showstopper but it's now beginning to bug me, fair enough a crash to desktop but a full shutdown of the PC seems really odd.
Any ideas, solutuions gratefully received.
P4 3GHz, 1GB RAM, Gigabyte GA-8PENXP Mainboard, 2 x EIDE Drives, 1 x SATA drive, Leadtek A380 5950 Graphics card, Audigy 2 soundboard.
OS - XP Professional SP1.
Directx 9.0b
In certain games, e.g. Painkiller demo the PC will just shut itself down ( that is power off ) almost as soon as the game starts. Don't really put this down to heat as other games ( FarCry ) runs fine for hours.
Tried various driver levels - from current working back to some earlier versions of Nvidia driver sets but to no avail. It's not a showstopper but it's now beginning to bug me, fair enough a crash to desktop but a full shutdown of the PC seems really odd.
Any ideas, solutuions gratefully received.
i dono i think a bad demo is to blame but do the post above
ASKER
Read these - don't really apply.....still no ideas.
Ok, so why do you think that the above suggestions do not apply? Have you tried reinstalling the game? Have you made sure your power supply and rest of the hardware are in good working order?
Again, did you try going to the forums and looking for suggestions or even ask there? You say certain games...the only games you mention is Pain killer....What other games? give us more information.
Not much for us to go on except what you have stated above. What else have you tried? And as you stated that the PC Will shut itself down.....do you mean it instantly shuts off? Or does it do an AUTOMATIC Shutdown on its own?
Again, did you try going to the forums and looking for suggestions or even ask there? You say certain games...the only games you mention is Pain killer....What other games? give us more information.
Not much for us to go on except what you have stated above. What else have you tried? And as you stated that the PC Will shut itself down.....do you mean it instantly shuts off? Or does it do an AUTOMATIC Shutdown on its own?
What you might be looking at here is an audio driver problem, we need to know what games cause this problem and which do not. Taking a guess, without all the facts in, though I would suggest that while Creative make the best home market sound cards in the world, they also make the worst drivers, and most game crashes in PCs with Audigies have been down to them.
I'm not ruling out Power supply or heat issues, and definitely need to know more information before I'm certain about this but I would recommend, as a first step, to update your sound card drivers, which you can get from Creative's website, and then give the Painkiller demo another try.
I'm not ruling out Power supply or heat issues, and definitely need to know more information before I'm certain about this but I would recommend, as a first step, to update your sound card drivers, which you can get from Creative's website, and then give the Painkiller demo another try.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
Sorry - guys been away for a week. Yeah - reinstalled PKiller demo twice, haven't tried the second demo which I think is now out, what I will say that's odd is PKiller runs fine in the 3d engine if I hit escape to go to the in game menu it's at that point it shuts down - very odd behaviour, I'll try a post on the PKiller forums and see if it's an acknowledged issue with the first demo. Other games that have caused this problem are Singles - some Sims-a-like game my kids try to play just goes into the main game and shuts down immediately, also had the problem once with FarCry recently but that's it in terms of problem games.
When I say shutdown I mean the PC powers off and needs to be restarted again, similar to someone pulling the plug from the back of the machine. Wakeup what do you mean by automatic shutdown - I'm assuming you mean an elegant windows driven shutdown which this doesn't appear to be.
Have an onboard soundcard aswell as the Audigy, I'll double check but I think the problem is independent of soundcard. I'll certainly download the latest Audigy driverset and see if that helps.
Don't think it's heat, or at least my front panel which gives a general heat indication / heat alarm threshold doesn't indicate anything serious at the time of crash. Generally hitting about 42c threshold at 60c.
Power supply is a fair point - think I have a spare unit lying about that I'll try swapping in and see if things settle down.
When I say shutdown I mean the PC powers off and needs to be restarted again, similar to someone pulling the plug from the back of the machine. Wakeup what do you mean by automatic shutdown - I'm assuming you mean an elegant windows driven shutdown which this doesn't appear to be.
Have an onboard soundcard aswell as the Audigy, I'll double check but I think the problem is independent of soundcard. I'll certainly download the latest Audigy driverset and see if that helps.
Don't think it's heat, or at least my front panel which gives a general heat indication / heat alarm threshold doesn't indicate anything serious at the time of crash. Generally hitting about 42c threshold at 60c.
Power supply is a fair point - think I have a spare unit lying about that I'll try swapping in and see if things settle down.
Heat....could still be a problem...depending on what your front panel is measuring. If it is case temperature it is measuring, then it proves nothing in the heat section. You may want to double check in your system's bios to see if it gives you a temperature reading. Make sure your processor is not overheating.
ASKER
Shastry - looks like it was power, had some rather odd issues booting PC a few days after last post, i.e. had to disconnect power from PC and reconnect before it would boot correctly. replaced with a new PSU and all seems fine including random shutdowns etc..
thanks everyone for your help
Doug
thanks everyone for your help
Doug
I thought i mentioned to check the Power supply first...but thats ok...My first comment talks about making sure the voltages were good....and then even my second reply asks to check the power supply again....
ASKER
aaarggghhh - sorry Wakeup, you're right. Erm - is it possible to reallocate points or am I too late? Apologies....
You can have the moderators reopen the question or redistribute points or whatever.
Also you can try reinstalling the game.
From Painkiller's website, I see that other people are having issues with the second demo(???? I dunno anything about either demos.....just reading in their forums....) Here is a link:
http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php?s=ded879799ac26eeea0041c027034f477&threadid=16101
Here's a link to tech discussion forums. Maybe you can find something:
http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=60
http://www.painkillergame.com/