Computer shuts down when playing games

[BillNye]

My computer will shut down after about 10 minutes of play. It does this by closing out of all of my things currently running and then shutting down. Not an imediate shut down. I have my PC out in the open and literally opened up in a poor attempt to prevent overheating but it still does this. I can feel the heat of my parts and my ATI graphics card runs extremely hot. Im gonna buy something to fix this problem but dont know what. It could be one of the following.

A) Power supply is low
B) Graphics card is malfucntioning.
C) Overheating, buy a water cooling system.

Does anybody have expierence w/ this type of thing. What should I do, Im gonna try and fix the problem asap by buying something tommorow but dont know what the problem is so cant buy the necessary part.

At this point I think the graphics card is messed up, it runs too hot. This could be caused by low power supply tho, damnit this sucks.

I really need help, any info is great.

[LeapFrog]

A well designed case will provide better cooling closed then open due to air flow. Are you overclocking (specifically overvolting)?

You should figure out what temp your cpu is at -- might be displayed in the bios or you could download cpufan. Also, please post some detailed specs of your computer (cpu, what heatsink, powersupply, graphics card, etc)

As a temporary fix you could try putting a large room fan in front of the open case and see if that helps. Really though if you are not overclocking temperature shouldn't be an issue. Water cooling can be a headache to get setup/maintain but it is far superior to air cooling. However you can get some great overclocks on air and reasonable heat/fan combos with some of the more modern cpus. For example I have 2.6 --> 3.6 on air. If your cpu is running hot and you have a crappy heat sink (the standard intel for example) then switching to say a thermaltake would be a huge improvement.

[BillNye]

Windows XP Professional

Dell Dimension 8400 Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40 GHz
3.39 GHz, 1.00 GB of Ram

Graphics Card is an ATI Radeon X800 XT
that was supposely just running at 110 degress Celsius (according to its biult in "current Temperature" Also it is not on ATI OVerdrive which i think = overclocked.

More on the graphics card (listing stuff, I really dont know what it means):

Memory Size: 256 MB
Core Clock in MHz 500 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 500 MHz

Edit: My Graphics Card is the only device that runs hot, its fan also makes an annoying noise. I took it out and reinstalled it, made sure it wasnt too dusty. The dust wasnt that bad.

[LeapFrog]

Hmm -- sounds like everything should be running at stock voltage/clock speed. Well here is what I suggest:

Check temp of cpu/graphics card under heavy load (ie benchmarking). Run say prime95 for say 15 minutes then check cpu temp with speedfan or whatever. Run some graphics benchmark and do the same with the card. The temp under load is really critical. The benches will also be useful in determining if your pc is 'flaking out' -- ie errors in prime95.

You could also test the voltage on the psu under heavy load to see if it is inadequate. As to how to do this I am not sure, never done it myself as I usually go a bit overboard when building my systems (650 watt). Not sure if you can get a software read but if nothing you could use a multimeter and test the rails. Check say the overclockers forums for info on how to test the psu.

A word of warning though -- not sure if dell still does it, but back in the day the dell motherboards required dell power supplies (or a ps with the same non standard connector).

[funkyworms]

Is your computer still under warranty from Dell? You should be able to get a new video card if it is. Be ready to speak with a non-native english speaker through 3 hours of diagnostics if you go this route.

[CORed]

I don't think Dell uses non-standard connectors for power supplies any more. I replaced the power supply on my early 2004 Dimension desktop with a generic power supply (original died about 1 month after warranty ran out) and I had no problem connecting it.

[CT11]

110degC is WAY to hot. nothing should be that hot.

The typical cause (if you are not over clocking, and some times if you are) of instability under load (ie games) is a bad PSU. Some times bad memory. but if your video card is getting that hot it is obviously the culprit.

[LeapFrog]

[ QUOTE ]
110degC is WAY to hot. nothing should be that hot.

The typical cause (if you are not over clocking, and some times if you are) of instability under load (ie games) is a bad PSU. Some times bad memory. but if your video card is getting that hot it is obviously the culprit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point -- for some reason I read that as 110F (43C). If you are getting an accurate reading then you have a problem.