I recently picked up Half-life 2 and after a few days of playing both HL2 and Counter-Strike online my computer randomly started restarting as I play the games.

Please someone help me out.

I have an Abit AN7 guru motherboard, and a radeon 9600 video card. Both brand new.

Hmm...not absolutely sure, but sometimes PCs, for some reason I probably should kno but don;t, will not run a particular program or something in the program. It's just something with how the kernel reads it or something mystical like that. My two PCs for examples. On one of them, I'd run programs and right in the middle I'd see a blue screen flash and the computer would restart. On my other PC, the same programs caused no problems at all. Not being anywhere near qualified to fix computers, best i can say is to make sure your drivers are up to date, no problems with registry. i don't think it was a problem installing. Also, is it just playing the games online or is it at any time since you run it that it crashes?

I had the exact same problem except it was on UT2k4 and Tribes vengeance and it would be when I x'd out of the games or just minimized them then BANG RESTART...my fix...I formatted and updated vid card drivers and have never had the problem since...hope it works for you

Well since you DID not take the time to fill our your profile and your computer specs .I will just shoot from the hip and probbly say take a look at the power supply .Please provide full specs and we will go from there.

What tbrunt3 said. And maybe you are having an overheating problem. Check to see if you've got dust buildup in the heatsinks of you cpu and video card, might be as simple as that.

My guess is it's your CPU overheating. Get a free temperature monitor and check the temp while the game is running. Google "motherboard monitor 5".

honestly all I think is that you need to update drivers for your vid card and u should be fine...and also reformatting would help...that's what I did

I would also guess overheating. But it also may be a BSOD.

[turn off automatic restart]
Right click "My Computer", choose "Properties".
Select the "Advanced" tab.
Under "Startup and Recovery" click "Settings".
UNselect "Automatically restart". Click "OK" twice.

This will help determine the error if it is a BSOD.

You can also check your error log:
Right click "My Computer".
Choose "Manage".
Expand "Event Viewer", click "System".
Look for an "Error" event on a day where it restarted, tell us what that is.
You might also check the "Application" log.

This all assuming you have XP of course. If not, never mind.
If you don't have XP, do this:

Throw your box away.
Go to http://www.alienware.com/
Purchase a gaming machine
Play like mad

Thankyou for your help. Ill be tryin that one. ill let you know if it worked, thanks for you time.

I don't really like Alienware PCs...I think you are just paying more for their name

Well, I have updated my video card and my motherboard. I lowered my Ext. clock to 128 from 143. Theres no dust on my heat sink. No viruses, no adware or spyware. Im out of solutions. Im thinking that I just need to get a new processor. Which I dont have the money for.

Most regular 9600's didnt come with a cooling fan. They tend to overheat in gaming. What brand and model is the card? You may be able to get an after market heatsink and fan.

You did not answer my question bud what procrossor do you have and how many hdds and dvd and cdroms do you have? I know your motherboard and video card Like I said this more likely a power supply problem also if you could who makes your power supply and how old is it...

I have one dvd-rom and one cd burning-rom. The power suply is an enermax 375W, and I have an AMD 2400+ processor.

It's either a memory issue or something to do with the graphics card.

Have you tried increasing the voltage of AGP to 1.6V in the BIOS?

If that doesn't work, slow down your memory (I assume PC3200) to 8/3/3/3 latency. And if that doesn't work, turn down the FSB speed in the BIOS down a notch.

I had the same problem with Far Cry and Half-Life 2, and turning down the FSB speed solved my problem. It was a memory incompatibility issue for me (I have Kingston memory, PC3200).

Well, I recently restored the settings on my motherboard and graphic card back to their default settings. Its been working so far, without restarts. So hopefully the problem has been solved. If not, I'll adjust the FSB speed. Thanks for your help.

The voltage is at 1.656 right now. Its doin good so far.