Wife's PC keeps restarting while playing browser games

siegristrm

Posts: 49   +0
My wife plays a lot of Japanese games and thus most of them are browser games, or are started through a browser. She seems to always have this issue of her PC randomly shutting down (not restarting) while she's playing. She may go most of a day without it shutting down or 30 mins. It never turns off when she is doing anything else, just games. I just put in a new 450 power supply that I had lying around to see if that would fix the issue, but it didn't. I even put a new power cord.

Now, I've heard overheating could be an issue, but I'm not sure if that is her issue. One thing that I predict it could be (but am unsure exactly how it works) is RAM (If this is null point, then it's likely a heating issue). I don't think she has any additional RAM in her PC and she is running W7Ultimate. I know you want specs usually, but she is on it atm, and I'll have to wait til later tonight to actually give you specs, but I'd really like to just get some brainstormed ideas on what I could/should check as an issue.

Thank you, and I'll update this with specs/etc when I get the chance. May be a little difficult though, since her software is all in Japanese.
 
As the crashes only occur when playing games it is likely to be either overheating, on the graphics card or CPU, or faulty memory. Install this temperature monitoring software and set it to display the temps in the taskbar. http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ This will display your CPU core temperatures. If this is a desktop PC with a graphics card check that the cards fan (if it has one) is running well and blow out the cards cooler with a can of compressed air, do not use a vacumm cleaner.

To test the memory download from the link and follow these instructions.

http://www.memtest.org/

You need to scroll down the page until you see the three blue screenshots. Just below is the list of downloads for Memtest86+ V4.20. Click on Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)and save to your desktop, When the download is complete right click the file and select Extract Here and burn the image to a CD. In windows 7 right click the extracted file, select Open With, then select Windows Disc Image Burning Tool then follow the prompts. For all other versions of windows (if you do not have an ISO burner) download this free software. http://www.isoimageburner.com/

Boot the PC into the Bios setup and set the CD/DVD drive to 1st in the boot sequence. Insert the disk in the drive then reboot and the disc will load into dos. Leave the test to run through at least 8 cycles.

The memtest will not be 100% accurate but should easily detect any major faults.
 
Ok, thank you for that information. She hasn't had a shutdown yet, so I'm letting her play her game until it does. When it does, I'll see if I can fix the issue and d/l the stuff you recommended. I'll get back to you if it works or not.
 
Ok, well I've started out by cleaning the GPU and CPU fans. We haven't had a shutdown yet, but we've also just went through a super typhoon that took out our electricity for a few days. I'll keep you informed if I get a shutdown after.
 
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