25 replies to this topic

[Youngowner93]

Hi folks,

This one has got me really baffled and im giving up all hope of ever sorting it. Basically when im playing any sort of game on my PC about 10 mins in the computer will blue screen and shut down instantly no matter what graphics settings it's on. I've tried updating drivers, running a check disk, reinstalling games, defrag, Windows repair tool, registry cleaner, Virus scan, disabling everything not necessary. Pretty much everything you get the picture. Im a PC techy myself and this one has really stumped me.

Anyone have any suggestions?

(Im running XP by the way)

[minijawa]

Sounds like a memory issue, happens when Windows has to access all its memory and for some reason it cant so it crashes. It would be helpful if you could get the error code when it crashes so can identify it for you.

[Youngowner93]

Blue Screen disappers to quickly for me to even see whats written, however i cant remember if it's stored in one of the error logs?

[Sam Walters]

Run memtest86

[Youngowner93]

Already done, didnt find any errors and it didnt blue screen.

[tommc92]

Blue Screen disappers to quickly for me to even see whats written, however i cant remember if it's stored in one of the error logs?

You can make the blue screen stay showing until you dismiss it

[TfcIan]

I had it happening with my old system because there wasn't enough memory, 2gb just wasn't enough for some of the modern games running under Windows 7. How much RAM have you got? Try bring up task manager when in a game to see how much memory the system is using.

Have you tried reseating the RAM modules? I've had that problem before, where it seems to be a complex problem but the solution was just to take the RAM out and put it back again; I think it can be caused by small amounts of dust getting into the DIMM slots, which causes small problems for the electrical current. Give your system a good de-dusting while your at it, dusty cases are horrible

There's an option in BIOS setup to make blue screen error messages stay until you choose to restart the system.

[Turbo Nick]

not overheating is it? used to get that a lot with mine when i used to play games on it.

[xrocketengineer]

I was having a similar problem playing 3D games. I would get the blue screen and the data dump with some message about an ATI file. Tried different drivers and the graphics card in another computer and it did the same thing. It turned out that the card is bad. It appears that it will work OK on regular 2D stuff. This was my newest and best card. Now the computer it is running fine with an older card. It is all AGP and I am not spending any more money on that.

Ivan

[Youngowner93]

I had it happening with my old system because there wasn't enough memory, 2gb just wasn't enough for some of the modern games running under Windows 7. How much RAM have you got? Try bring up task manager when in a game to see how much memory the system is using.

Have you tried reseating the RAM modules? I've had that problem before, where it seems to be a complex problem but the solution was just to take the RAM out and put it back again; I think it can be caused by small amounts of dust getting into the DIMM slots, which causes small problems for the electrical current. Give your system a good de-dusting while your at it, dusty cases are horrible

There's an option in BIOS setup to make blue screen error messages stay until you choose to restart the system.

Got 4GB of RAM should be more than enough for anything im trying to run surely?

not overheating is it? used to get that a lot with mine when i used to play games on it.

Card looks fine at temperature it's getting nowhere near a state where it would be overheating

I was having a similar problem playing 3D games. I would get the blue screen and the data dump with some message about an ATI file. Tried different drivers and the graphics card in another computer and it did the same thing. It turned out that the card is bad. It appears that it will work OK on regular 2D stuff. This was my newest and best card. Now the computer it is running fine with an older card. It is all AGP and I am not spending any more money on that.

Ivan

Card has been replaced already after i had a faulty unit, has been fine for 3 years it's only just started doing this however

Will give it a good clean out now and see how it improves, even though it was cleaned out 2 weeks ago.

[mini77]

if you can try a different vid card and RAM see what happens then..also are you o/c your system?

Edited by mini77, 29 August 2011 - 04:05 PM.

[Youngowner93]

if you can try a different vid card and RAM see what happens then..also are you o/c your system?

Nah im not O/C, think i may have solved it for the time being though. I turned 'Write debugging infomation' off and it seems to have no further issues with blue screening?

[mini77]

if you can try a different vid card and RAM see what happens then..also are you o/c your system?

Nah im not O/C, think i may have solved it for the time being though. I turned 'Write debugging infomation' off and it seems to have no further issues with blue screening?

cool keep us all informed

[Dan]

As far as I know there are only two things that cause the instant shutdown blue screen nightmare and the crashes don't appear in logs or registry because the shutdown is initiated by bios at a very basic level. They are both mentioned above, basic memory address errors and overheating inside the CPU. If it's overheating some bios sets will sound a siren through the PC speaker for a few seconds before the shutdown, it it's memory it shuts off dead. I may be wrong but these are the only things I've seen do it. And it is generally caused by a game, because games tend to mean lots of number crunching.

[mike.]

My younger brother has the 'box room' in our house which gets quite stuffy and hot - Especially since he's in there on his PC 24/7. His computer does this quite a lot and its usually when hes not cleaned it out in a while. He has to take the side off the case and clear any dust and fluff out of the heat sinks every so often and its fine again after that.