My computer turns off when starting up

[Harbourboy]

Hmmm, now it seems to happen whenever I play Beyond the Sword, but only in the mornings and never in the evening.

 

[raketooy]

I guess the fan's the problem. The computer heats too much and closes itself then. When you play games, the computer heats more than normally and more easily closes itself. I had a similar problem once with my older computer.

 

[Harbourboy]

I did what ainwood said and changed my settings so I got a blue screen of death. Now the blue screen says that the problem is something to do with nv4_dsp.dll, along with a load of hex-looking gibberish. Any ideas?

 

[warpus]

post the error codes that you saw w/ the blue screen

I found this after a 2 sec long googling session

 

[Harbourboy]

I loaded up some new nVidia drivers and tried playing Beyond the Sword again, but it still crashed after about 20 minutes of playing. This time there was no blue screen at all, just straight to a restart.

 

[warpus]

You know, posting those error codes might actually help.

 

[Harbourboy]

OK. These were the codes I got BEFORE I updated the drivers:

stop: 0x0000008E (0XC0000005, 0xBFADFB73, 0XABD99A60, 0X00000000)
NV4_DSP.DLL - Address BFADFB73 base at BF9D5000, datestamp 453BDC7A.

These codes have not re-appeared since the update, but the game has still caused a restart.

I found a utility that shows the temperature of the GPU. No idea how it does that (if there is already a thermometer on it, why isn't this standard diagnostic information?) but it shows 59C when BtS is not on, and 77C when BtS is on. Is that bad or normal?

 

[ainwood]

For a GPU - its OK. For a CPU, it would be too hot.

I would suggest that you download the latest nvidia drivers.
Before installing them, you should run drivecleaner (read the instructions with it). It may help.

It does sound like you have heat problems. Have you tried monitoring the system & CPU temperatures? You could try this with Motherboard monitor.

 

[Harbourboy]

Wow. Why isn't this sort of stuff standard on all computers?

It's asking me what motherboard I have. How do I find that out? All I can see by looking at it is that it is MSI.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Because you answered your own question. Configurations differ, and its easier to let people find the utils for themselves.

 

[Harbourboy]

ainwood, what do I do if my motherboard is not on the list in that application. I think I have an MSI P965 Neo-F LGA775 ATX Motherboard MS-7235-010, but I can't see that on the list of supported motherboards at all.

 

[Harbourboy]

I installed that motherboard thermometer thing but I can't get it to work. I still ask why, if monitoring temperature is so important, and if the hardware already has thermometers in them, why do you have to download extra tools in order to be able to read the temperatures? That's like buying a car but having to go to a different shop to buy a speedometer. Madness!

 

[Speedo]

I installed that motherboard thermometer thing but I can't get it to work. I still ask why, if monitoring temperature is so important, and if the hardware already has thermometers in them, why do you have to download extra tools in order to be able to read the temperatures? That's like buying a car but having to go to a different shop to buy a speedometer. Madness!

You don't. Most people just completely ignore the driver CD that came with their mobo.

 

[warpus]

I had a similar problem, although the reboots were random. I ended up fixing it by upping my RAM voltage to 2.1 from 1.9.. but it ran fine on 1.9 for a half a year, somehow.

What kinda RAM do you have?

(I'm saying this even though it sounds like it's a driver, heat, or IRQ related issue. Might as well try anything at this stage, right?)

BTW, does this happen with other 3D games?

 

[Harbourboy]

I don't know what sort of RAM I have. It's 2 green looking harmonica shaped things.

I don't play any other games these days, but it never happened with Neverwinter Nights 2 when I played that a few times in December 2006, and it never happened with Civ IV Vanilla or Warlords (that I can remember).

 

[Harbourboy]

I now have a thing called Speedfan installed. It says that I have the following temperatures (with my PC not doing anything other than surfing the 'net):

System: 41C
CPU: 53C
Aux: 50C
HD: 41C
Temp1 ACPI: 41C
Core 0: 56C
Core 1: 57C
Core NVidia Card: 60C

How do they sound?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

CPU is a bit high. Actually, quite high. Im on an older P4 and my temp is only 34C

 

[Rheinmetall]

53C is a bit high, but not alarming. Though the NV4_DSP.DLL suggests an entirely different problem.

You could run somekind of burn in test and monitor the CPU temp under load.
Try http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm for example.

 

[Harbourboy]

When I am playing Civ IV: Beyond the Sword, the cores go up to about 65C and the graphics card goes up to about 75C.

What are the right sorts of temperatures?

 

[warpus]

I don't know what sort of RAM I have. It's 2 green looking harmonica shaped things.

Right.

I give up trying to help you.