computer doesn't want to play.....games

[supermosiman]

Hi all, newbie here with what (to me) is a bizarre problem.

I have an 'Infinity' PC with a Pentium 4 3.2 GHz processor and 1GHz RAM and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro AGP graphics card. I have had the PC for quite a while now, a couple of years probably-and it was second hand, so it's quite old....

And it has been absolutely fine, til maybe 6 weeks ago.

It is perfect, will run all day, surf the net, watch videos, youtube, whatever. Until you try and play games on it.

If I play Flightsim or something, it will function perfectly well, for about 5 minutes, then it either freezes momentarily, or goes straight to, a black screen. The mouse (USB) switches off, the screen goes to standby, but the PC keeps running. The only option is to hold the on/off switch to shut the PC down. And after it does shut down, the keyboard stays live....

This also happens if the kids are playing online games...

I thought it might be a virus, so last week I re-formatted the thing. And it's just the same.

Any ideas most welcome.

Thanks in advance!

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS

 

Sounds like a hot Video Card.

 

Download speccy from here: you want the free version

http://www.piriform.com/speccy/download

It will analyse your system and give you (amongst other things) temperatures.

This will give us an indication of the Video Card temp.

 

Take the temps when playing one of the games.

[supermosiman]

Thanks Ken

I think you're right-I thought along those lines myself, removed the card and gave it a good clean-after which it worked fine for about 15 minutes, then did the same.

Is it recoverable or should I just look for another card?

Cheers

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, it may also be the power supply or even the CPU overheating too.

However please do as Ken suggested by downloading and installing Speccy, then let us know what temperatures it finds, where and at what temperature, we will be better placed to advise further with that information.

 

Nev.

[KenB]

removed the card and gave it a good clean

If the card needed cleaning then the rest of the system would too.

Take a close look at the CPU fan and case fans.

Case vents and motherboard ( underneath too ) need looking at for dust.

 

Post the temps - idle and under load would be better than just idle temps.

[supermosiman]

Hi all

I did a clean of all the bits and fans etc.

I have two temps from Speccy-Motherboard and Hard drive.

Motherboard doesn't change-steady at 22c, Hard drive starts at 32c but has cut out a couple of times today at 38c and just now (not playing anything, just general use) at 41c.

How is that for normal, or not?

Cheers

[KenB]

These temperatures look ok - does it not give you a temperature for the video card?

ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro AGP graphics card.

 

Do you have on-board video that you can try?

If you do - take the Radeon out of the slot first.

[supermosiman]

No other video output. It just went black on me this afternoon during normal use so I'm kind of assuming the graphics card is on the way out. No biggie, there are a gazillion for sale on ebay-I just haven't a clue what I'm looking for....should I start a new thread asking that question?

[supermosiman]

Well I grabbed a new card from ebay, but the issue stayed. Sometimes the PC will run all day (not gaming/videos) sometimes it shuts off without being touched.

Any other ideas, or am I in the market for a new pc?

[KenB]

I would have put money on it being the video card - but obviously not.

 

Take the RAM out.

Give the contacts a clean with a pencil eraser.

Put just one module back.

 

Try running on one module.

 

If you get the same problem - swap the modules over and run on the other one.

If you don't get the problem with just one RAM module in then the other is faulty.