[racerrat]

Hi. I recently built my first computer this past August and have been having some difficulties with it. Here are the specs for it:

Asus M2N-SLI Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition Processor
EVGA GeForce 8800 GT Video Card - 512MB
Maxtor DiamondMax 21 500GB Hard Drive
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy SE
Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 x 2
HP dvd1035i DVD Writer
Ultra X3 ULT40064 1000-Watt Power Supply
Thermaltake TR2-R1 / AMD Socket AM2/939/754 / Aluminum / 92mm Fan / CPU Cooler
Thermaltake Black Armor Full-Tower ATX Case

Operating System: Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3


My problem is that whenever I try to play Call of Duty 4 (single player) the computer will just shutdown. It will load up and when I click on the button "Resume Mission", the system will work for about a minute and then shutdown. I have played other games like Half Life 2 or Team Fortress 2 on the highest setting and been perfectly fine. I am even able to play Call of Duty 4 (multiplayer). It just happens when I play the single player. Any help or suggestions would greatly be appreciated. Thanks.

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Hi there, and welcome.

It's possible your computer is overheating, and then shutting down once the temperature gets too high. A quick search on the Thermaltake TR2-R1 reveals it is a very basic heatsink and fan combo, and would not do a lot to get rid of much heat. Upgrading to a better heatsink and fan combo should yield some better results, if this is the problem.

How many case fans do you have in that case?

While yes, you do have a 1000W PSU, Ultra are poor quality, and I would not be surprised if this is the problem. If the PSU has a faulty rail, and the 8800GT is trying to take more power than it can get, then you would experience problems. Although specifically I do not think this should be the problem right now.

So first up, what kind of stress testing have you done with this system? Any temperature results you can post for us to see?

Troy

[Troy]

Hi there, and welcome.

It's possible your computer is overheating, and then shutting down once the temperature gets too high. A quick search on the Thermaltake TR2-R1 reveals it is a very basic heatsink and fan combo, and would not do a lot to get rid of much heat. Upgrading to a better heatsink and fan combo should yield some better results, if this is the problem.

How many case fans do you have in that case?

While yes, you do have a 1000W PSU, Ultra are poor quality, and I would not be surprised if this is the problem. If the PSU has a faulty rail, and the 8800GT is trying to take more power than it can get, then you would experience problems. Although specifically I do not think this should be the problem right now.

So first up, what kind of stress testing have you done with this system? Any temperature results you can post for us to see?

Troy

[racerrat]

Fans:
Two 120 mm. one bringing in air, one getting rid of it
90mm taking air from the HDD

Temp Results: Using RivaTuner v2.10
100% Fan Speed - core temp = 48 C, ambient temp = 38 C
80% - core = 49 C, ambient = 39 C
60% - core = 50 C, ambient = 40 C

3DMark06 Result
Using a 15" LCD with a max resolution of 1024 x 768: 9536

Also, I ran 3DMark06 on the highest setting, running each test 3 times in succession and the computer didn't shutdown. I got a score of 8708 and had max temps of 75 C for the core and 56 C for ambient

If there are other things you could suggest for me to try I would greatly appreciate it.

Edited by racerrat, 14 October 2008 - 10:54 PM.

[Troy]

If your computer is able to run through the complete 3DMark06 suite of benchmark testing, then I should think your temperatures are fine.

It's possible there's an error with the game installation itself. Have you tried reinstalling the game? Are there any update patches that could be applied to the game?

Cheers

Troy

[racerrat]

So I checked to see if the game was updated completely, it was - v1.7

Anyways, I tried to use the Dual Core Optimizer released by AMD. The game played fine, would load up except for the the graphics going crazy when I would zoom in using any gun. So i'm thinking to try the new driver from NVIDIA (178.24). Installed it, and the game is back to random shut down. THis time is almost completed loading (like with the opening sequence and the load bar for any mission).

This is where I am and am not sure what to do. Should I say screw it and upgrade to Vista-64 to see if that would help?

[Troy]

I am not too sure what to do from here, also.

If the game is supposed to work under XP, then upgrading to Vista should not make any difference. You did say 64-bit Vista, though - are you using XP 64-bit?

Are you experiencing any other problems with the computer? Do you play other games and it works fine? If it's only with this one game, then it's a game problem.

If you are experiencing other problems also, then there may be some other factor influencing it.

Troy

[racerrat]

I think something else might be wrong with the computer. I have now had the random shutdown problem with Command and Conquer 3 and the Call of Duty 4 multiplayer. I have a 64 bit chip but am running 32 bit XP. WOuld switching to vista 64 help at all or should i look into other problems like with the power supply or with the motherboard / chip?

[p-zero]

Whenever I get random shutdowns when going in to a game its typically because I have some sort of virus that is trying to perform some illegal action. This has happend to me twice since I built my comp in '06. A complete reinstall took care of any random shutdown issues I had. My comp wouldnt shutdown during COD4, but it did during BF2142 and Crysis (but that was a coding issue with the game).
Try a re-install, I bet itll take care of your issue.
-P.

Edited by p-zero, 20 October 2008 - 10:20 PM.