Computer shuts off when playing (UT3, WOW, Company of Heroes)

[Keken]

Here are my specs:

Asus striker 2 extreme
E8500 3.16 Ghz
BFG's gtx280 ocx
2gb Ram Crucial 2000mhz
ultra x3 1000watt PSU
Windows xp, sp3

I'm a first time builder. Please be gentle.

I try playing games, but my computer just shuts off. To be more specific, when I play ut3 at 800x600 with all the setting on low. My computer turns off, the monitors go black. I wait for a few seconds to see if my monitor shows something, but it's just black. So I turn the power back on the computer and everything turns on ok. Or so it seems....
I have tried playing games on the lowest setting possible and it works... but it's all blurry... so it's no fun.

Here's what I've tried.

I unchecked the "automatic restart" option, but even with that it still turns off with no info on why it turned off.
I've checked to see if the CPU and Graphics card run at normal temps. They do.
I've updated everything I can think of.

I've read other threads on the same problem but still don't know what's up with this.

I've ran memtest already, it's all good there...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

On a side note. I installed windows xp at my friends house, did the windows updates there, then brought it to my house, would that matter at all?

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

 

[kimsland]

No it doesn't matter where you installed Xp and the updates


Usually this is a sign of faulty ram, but you say that you have already tested it.
Memtest must be run for 7 Passes (approx 4 hrs) Is that what you did?

Also in CMOS (usually press F2 or DEL or some other key during system startup)
Is everything defaulted ? ie You are not overclocking anything?
You can also run System Defaults from in there.

Sometimes this is related to other hardware installed (either internally or externally, like USB connections) so you might want to test with everything, not required, unplugged

There are also Drive Diagnostic tests that you can run on your HardDrive

Sometimes it's in relation to other software installed and running
After completing the above tests you might want to let us know what Antivirus and or firewall or any other software that is running presently on your system.


Please try this:

Manual steps to run Chkdsk from My Computer or Windows Explorer

• Open My Computer, and then right-click the hard disk that you want to check.
• Click Properties, and then click Tools.
• Under Error-checking, click Check Now. A dialog box that shows the Check disk options is displayed

Use one of the following procedures:

• • To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, click Start.
• • To repair errors without scanning the volume for bad sectors, select the Automatically fix file system errors check box, and then click Start. (tick)
• • To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box.

Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message:

The disk check could not be performed because the disk check utility needs exclusive access to some Windows files on the disk. These files can be accessed by restarting Windows. Do you want to schedule the disk check to occur the next time you restart the computer?

Click Yes to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.

Wait until Chkdsk finishes Checking / Repairing any faults
Windows will then either restart your computer or continue loading Normally.