Compy "randomly" restarting

[Static]

This only happens when I play one game: WoW.

But basically, ever since the last patch (2.4), I'll do something slightly - normally nothing - graphically intensive.

Doesn't happen in shattrath (main city lotsa NPCs/mobs) or IF (also lotsa mobs/people), but it happens in 2 places:

Zangarmarsh (lotsa "water", mushrooms, and odd graphic effects.) and the new island.

In order to prevent against this stuff, I have to put ALL of my graphics down to the bare minimum, minus color and resolution.

I'm thinking it's related to my power supply, but I'm not sure. Used to have a 160 watt supply, but I'm using a friend of my bro's spare right now, which is 260 watts.

But this is what happens: I see everything on the screen freeze for about a fourth of a second, then my computer simply restarts. Instant off then it just starts back up again, as if there was a power failure.

my video card is a sapphire 2600 pro, 512 mb. I can run just about every other game on full graphics and get about 40 FPS, but in WoW...it just hates it as of 2.4.

So would getting a better power supply (idunno, maybe 500 watts) fix this problem, or is it a driver/something else related problem?

[Goober]

Try downloading the latest catalyst drivers or try using some older drivers.

You can even try using the Omega drivers, search for Omega ATi.

Make sure all your other drivers are up-to-date.

See if you can update DX as well.

[Static]

Aiight I'll try that tonight...could you actually put up a link to these "catalyst" and "omega" sites?

Sometimes google is annoying and it's nigh-impossible to find stuff.

[Goober]

I'm pretty sure its http://www.omegadrivers.net

and the Catalyst is ATi's drivers http://www.ati.com

[Static]

Haven't tried the drivers yet, but I just ordered a new power supply (630 watts) to see if that was the problem...just a bit of an upgrade from my 160 watt one.

[Static]

Ahh freakin crap.

I downloaded those drivers.

I installed them.

My framerate - in every game - was terrible. Usually around 20 FPS, wouldn't go any higher whereas with the old drivers I got around 60 most of the time. I messed with all the settings I could think of, nothing worked.

Now, I re-downloaded the official Sapphire drivers...I get halfway through installation, and I get:

"Could not find a file compatible with your operating system." and it closes itself.

And that is the *only* driver that Sapphire had for windows XP...designed for 64 bit and I'm guessing mine isn't 64 bit. Sigh.

edit: nm...I found my old driver CD. Had to uninstall every driver for video stuff ever, restart my computer *3* times, then install the drivers from the CD and restart one more additional time.

[Blaze]

Another thing you might want to try is to test your RAM for errors. This was the case with my old comp. Bought a new PSU, a new video card, a new CPU heatsink, and was still having problems. Then I made a bootable CD with memtest86 (I think) on it, and it turns out one of my 512mb sticks was bad. This was causing my computer to restart at random times when playing certain games.

So yeah, that's just an idea. If you don't know how to make a bootable CD with the .ISO you can download from the memtest86 site, I can just give you the CD I have sitting around at DLP.

[Static]

Hmm, it might be the ram. Right now I have a set that I bought, 2 512s and a separate, by itself 512 stick.

Might just be the 512 stick. When I order a new case (got a new power supply...it's too big for the case I'ma get another set of 512s to be solid.

It's kinda getting time that I need to do almost a complete re-building of the computer...:/ motherboard and up.

If new ram doesn't solve it...by the end of this year I swear I'm getting a new video card and motherboard. And processor.

[diemonkey]

If you're still having problems, you should uninstall every ATI driver you have, delete all the folders that are associated with ATI. restart. Then install the new drivers. This would fix my issues that I had when I had an ATI card..... and it looks like you already said you did that........


you said that it only happens with WOW? have you check the forums for other people that might have the same problem? also have you tried playing other games for a significant amount of time? like +2 hours

[Static]

Yep, I've tried all that.

I kept a post on the help forums for *8 days* on the top, and nobody appeared to be having the same problem.

Anyways, this is basically the status of the problem:

It's not a power issue - I just put in a new 650 watt power supply over the old 140 watt one (lol)
It's not a video card issue - I tried swapping out with a new video card that my sister got for her birthday. Problem still happened. (GeForce 6200)
It's not a drivers issue. Even with those drivers that gave me a crappy FPS, I would still get restarted.

So I believe that it's a ram issue. Sam's sending me a new motherboard (complete with 2 gigs of ram) that's AGP, for $150. So if the problem occurs past that...

[Ryuu]

Yep, I've tried all that.

I kept a post on the help forums for *8 days* on the top, and nobody appeared to be having the same problem.

Anyways, this is basically the status of the problem:

It's not a power issue - I just put in a new 650 watt power supply over the old 140 watt one (lol)
It's not a video card issue - I tried swapping out with a new video card that my sister got for her birthday. Problem still happened. (GeForce 6200)
It's not a drivers issue. Even with those drivers that gave me a crappy FPS, I would still get restarted.

So I believe that it's a ram issue. Sam's sending me a new motherboard (complete with 2 gigs of ram) that's AGP, for $150. So if the problem occurs past that...

Thats WOW telling you to quit... Plain and simple. Xp