I have Windows XP-Pro... 128 MB Ram 796 Mhz 104 GB of free space... My son consistantly cannot use any computer CD games... They install, load, and even start to play, then after several minutes, the whole computer shuts down. I have the nessessary requirements listed on the back of the CD. Any ideas what makes it continuously shut down? I have no other problems with it..
Try loading the latest drivers for your video card. Based on those system spec's, I would imagine you are on the lower limits of most of todays popular games. Usually shut downs are a sign of overheating or incompatibility somewhere. Good Luck.
I would second what Nat_RH advised. Was working on a PC this afternoon running WinXP Pro with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive, Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz. It would randomly shut down and reboot. Found the issue to be the video card driver. There are some known issues with XP and the ATI Radeon video cards. Updated the driver for the card and (knock on wood), it was operating fine after that.
with those specs i would assume you have a *gasp* 16 or 32 mb graphics card. it might be over heating due to the loads, etc. i know doom 3 really taxed my 256 mb card...
It would really take a little more info before I send you down that "try this" path so I'll give you a little info to build from. If you make any driver changes wright down what you have "now" for reference so you can put it back. Better yet, do yourself a favor and before making any changes do a "XP Restore Point" right now. If your not seeing any video prob's while surfing and all other applications are running ok, I'd say you have a memory problem. 128 MB of ram is "border line" enough to run Win XP Pro and a few tough applications. When the game box requirements say 128MB it means the game and XP "ONLY", nothing running in the background. If the video plug on the back of your PC plugs in near the printer, USB, mouse, keyboard ....etc, then you have what's called "onboard" video. This type of video shares the ram that is on the motherboard. Typically you set the quantity it will share in the bios setup. This means if you have 128MB and the video is set to use 32MB your PC is running the XP on 96MB of ram when the video calls for it. If you have onboard video, your ram is bound to fail when the video kicks in for 3D game applications. If you want to reduce the load on the existing ram quantity exit all those unecessary applications in the system tray. (lower right corner of your destop) Any icon in that tray is eating ram resources. Close all running applications also. This may give you enough ram to run the game. If you use DSL and your virus protection & firewall are in the sys tray make sure you (1) disable your web connection first and (2) make darn sure you remember to turn it back on when you turn the web connection back on. If you list the maker & model of your PC here, I can give you a better analysis of your problem. If you'd like a profile on what's in your PC, download this FreeWare, it gives the profile of your PC in a web page format. BELARC ADVISOR http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html If your PC literate try this one: http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=3
processor fan Last time my PC started shutting down on it's own it turned out to be the processor cooling fan. open the case while the computer is on and make sure the fan is running. I changed out the fan and have had no problems since. Good luck.
