sudden shut-downs & restarts while using games

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sudden shut-downs & restarts while using games

(16 posts) (6 voices)

Started 17 years ago by scarfy
Latest reply from Keilaron

scarfy
Member

Hi,

I'm not positive this is the correct forum to mention this; sorry if it's not. I've been downloading games & programs from GAOTD for a few months now & have never had any problems with downloads, activations or using the softwares. I've been really thrilled with all I've gotten here, so thanks GAOTD!

However, recently - about 4 days now - I'm suddenly experiencing complete computer shut-down in the midst of using the games (haven't tested the programs yet, just noticed this with the games). This is not happening at any other time than with GAOTD games; my computer is very stable & is scanned daily for viruses & spyware, etc - all clear.

I'll open one of these games, play for anywhere from one to about 10 minutes; then the computer will shut down suddenly, then restart - and often it will shut itself down twice more in the midst of the restarting process, until finally it restarts once more & scan disk runs. When it scans, it usually finds some references to 'first allocation unit' not being valid, in various places within my user application data - and quite often related to Flash Player.

Does anyone have any idea why this might suddenly be happening with only these games (again - doesn't happen at *any* other time)? I thought there might be a Flash Player update & went to check (indeed there was, from the 10th of July) & downloaded the update. Still shutting down 1-3 times each time, when using GAOTD games :(.

Any suggestions or help would be very welcome!

OS is Windows XP Home, games I've got that I'm experiencing troubles with are three of the Brave Dwarves releases, Brick Shooter, and Real Apex's Lunch Puzzle Deluxe. As mentioned, I haven't tested yet whether this is happening with any GAOTD softwares. I will do & note here if there are problems with those too. I haven't done any other downloads/installs or alterations in my system at all, during the time period that this has been happening - except I did get the Flash Decompiler yesterday, just haven't had time to test it out yet.

Posted 17 years ago #
Barry
Member

Hello,
Three, possible things that could cause a sudden series of crashes, come to mind. Your system could be over heating, too much heat usually caused by a build up of dust on the heat sink will shut down your computer. A faulty video card will cause sudden shut downs. Not enough RAM, for all the programs you are running at the same time, will cause crashes also. Before you start your game, run the Task Manager and see what processes you have running, you might need to shut down some non essential programs that are taking up RAM to run a highly demanding game.
Of course these are just guesses on your problem, there are several other reasons for sudden crashes, but these 3 are quite common.
Good luck!
Barry

Posted 17 years ago #
BuBBy
Teh adnim

Turn off automatic restarts, so you at least get an error message as a hint where to start.

Control Panel-> System-> Advanced-> Startup & Recovery (Settings)->System Failure (Deselect 'Automatic Restart')

Then make a note of the numbers (and the stop code). This might be a hint (Let it crash a few times - to check that it is the same error each time).

Posted 17 years ago #
Keilaron
Member

Strange... what are your video and audio cards?

Posted 17 years ago #
scarfy
Member

Thanks for all your replies & help! Sorry it's taken me a while to get back here.

This is very strange indeed, since I haven't had any problems like this before & it just started suddenly. I assumed it had to be something to do with GAOTD games since that's the only time this shut-down happens, but then I realised I don't actually play any *other* games on here, so obviously it would only happen with these ones, heh.

Anyway, I did what BuBBy suggested first, turned off the automatic restarts, then opened one of the games & played for 12 minutes before the pute shut down. Funny thing - it restarted automatically immediately after shut down anyway, no error messages, no scan disk, just straight into windoze again. There weren't any extra shut downs, at least.

Considering I've been playing these games for a few months with no issues whatsoever & haven't installed anything or changed anything about the system/services before starting to experience this problem (and typically shut all extra programs down before playing games, just run the usual 37 processes), I'm thinking it probably *is* an issue with overheating or other possible hardware issue, as Barry suggested. I checked the heat - just a 'hand test' so far, nothing proper yet - & it really did seem to be running hotter during game use. I'm going to clean the machine, do some maintenance tasks & look into graphics issues & see if any of it makes any difference; or maybe there's a problem I'll catch at the same time. I'll report back here to let you know results, soon as I've got this done.

Keilaron: I'm using an Acer 9500 laptop - 1.5GHz, 400 MHz FSB, 512MB DDR2 Ram (getting another stick of same, shortly), with 17" WXGA CrystalBrite color TFT LCD, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900. I have an internal (Realtek) audio card but disabled it & use a Creative USB Sound Blaster Live 24-bit external card with speakers instead.

Thanks again :).

Posted 17 years ago #
Keilaron
Member

scarfy, do any other audio programs (esp. Winamp if you're using that) give you any trouble? If not, I think we'll just rule out it being the sound card (though I'm really tempted to blame Creative again).
Anyway, laptops are kind of known for overheating; Are you laptop fans working OK? Do you have any laptop cooling products you can try?
I can't really comment on whether or not those games could really cause overheating, unfortunately, as I've not played them. I thought Brave Dwarves wasn't even 3D...? A 2D game should not cause overheating. How long have you had this laptop?
Oh, try running dxdiag. If there are any DirectX issues, you should be able to find them by running the tests in that program.

Posted 17 years ago #
scarfy
Member

Nope, no problems with any programs whatsoever, or with the computer, aside from the fact that any use of these games shuts the computer off as if I'd hit the power button to turn it off. I've had the laptop since late 2005, almost 2 years now, and this is the first trouble of any sort I've had with its use.

I've been wracking my brains trying to remember if I've done *anything* (even so much as changed configs for some program on my pute) that might've changed a setting that could affect these games, but there's just nothing. It's all been set up as I like it for ages, and it's all been ticking right along, until this shutdown started happening with the games.

*However*... aside from the fact that it does seem to be running a bit hot (only seemed that way to the touch so far, doesn't really tell us anything useful at all), I'm thinking a clean-up & such would be helpful (delete old crap to make more hard drive space). Besides that, I've had the thing set to auto-defrag, but something's wrong in that it doesn't seem to have been doing that after all, recently - file system looks pretty bad. I'll do the defrag & see if it helps, along with checking the fan & such. Hopefully it's not going bad, but good to catch it now if it is. Still... I use very processsor-intensive programs besides the games, too (Photoshop, Flash, etc) & the computer only ever shuts down with these games. If it was a problem with the fan/heat sink, it would probably show up with *any* intensive use of the processor, not just the games eh?

And yup - I ran the dxdiag yesterday & there are no probs whatsoever. I've even tried running the games now in 256 colours & the 640x480 res - hasn't helped at all.

The *one* clue I have that it might be related to an issue with the graphics chip somehow is that in my searches I've found people complaining that Sims game & others have frozen at specific spots. Not a shut-down issue like mine, but close, and it's the same chipset as mine, some driver, that's causing the prob. I'll look into this more closely too.

Still, it comes down to the fact that *nothing has changed on my system* and suddenly I'm having problems with only these games. Hmmm. Confusing.

Posted 17 years ago #
NolafromNZ
Member

Hi Scarfy,

I have an Acer laptop purchased August 2005, with roughly the same components as you, (screen only 15.4" wide, no specialised Graphics card) and I got a problem where I got vertical stripes on my screen and the laptop had to be rebooted in the middle of certain BFG games. Not all of them, either, and it never happened with anything else. I queried it on a forum and it turned out to be heat-related. I purchased a cooling pad,which is always on now, but the most important thing I did (and do at least monthly now) was to vacuum my laptop from top to bottom. This got out the dust and dog hairs (we've got 3) and cat hairs (4 of them). I have never had another crash or seen another vertical stripe since I did this. I had tested my ram, run dxdiag etc.etc. before I vacuumed, to no avail. Hope your problem is as easy to solve as this, and that I have been of help.

Posted 17 years ago #
scarfy
Member

Thanks NolafromNZ, what you've written is very welcome. I'll check out the cooling pad, as I've wondered generally before about whether the heat thing could ever be an issue & would rather protect against it becoming one (had no idea about cooling pads before this thread!). My machine definitely needs a cleaning physically, too, and it's quite possible that's an issue - I also have a cat, as well as extra dust in the room where I usually work, from a well-travelled road outside. Hopefully these things will help too.

Posted 17 years ago #
BuBBy
Teh adnim

Cleaning your computer
http://www.computerhope.com/cleaning.htm

Posted 17 years ago #
Barry
Member

Hi scarfy,
Just in case you do not know, you can check your systems temp. in the BIOS by,
Reboot
On startup hit the Delete button
This will bring you to the BIOS Setup Utility
Using arrow keys go to Power on Main menu
Select the Hardware Monitor, Enter
This should show you the CPU temp, the Motherboard temp, and your fan speed.
Good day,
Barry

Posted 17 years ago #
BuBBy
Teh adnim

Although this BIOS setting is more common in desktops than in laptops - though it can't hurt to check.

Posted 17 years ago #
fred2007
Member

Common reeasons for such problems can be

- RAM defective. Games may have excessive RAM usage. You maybe never touch the defective areas of the RAM in normal usage

- Power supply defective. The power consumption raises when playing games.

- Graphic accelerator / graphics card defective. With games the power consumption raises, more heat...

- some defects on the HDD. Check the HDD with scandisk / CHKDSK depending on the system you are running. Up to Win Me it´s called scandisk and CHKDSK on newer system. The HDD in newer systems can´t be checked while Windows is running if you use NTFS file system on your HDD. Also the HDD check won´t run automatically until Windows finds a huge problem during startup.

- Overheating or power failure in general. Automatic shutdown is activated in BIOS.

Posted 17 years ago #
scarfy
Member

thank you BuBBy, Barry & fred2007 for the helpful links & information - much appreciated while I'm figuring this out! I'm hoping to finally have this solved before the end of the weekend. right now I'm doing some cleanup & maintenance tasks & will delve deeper if none of it does the trick.

Posted 17 years ago #
scarfy
Member

Solved!

Seems it was a combination of fragmented file system & overheating. I had the machine set to do auto-defrag, but - whether it's glitchy or whether it couldn't keep up because of some major shifts in data (don't know) - I hadn't actually checked it for a month or two & the drive was quite fragmented. I tidied up a bit, defragged a few times & then got a cooling pad that's working wonders to draw the heat away from the machine. Today I've been able to play any of the games as long as I wanted, no shut-downs! Very relieved. However, I'll also be cleaning the machine out (tomorrow), since it needs a cleaning regardless.

Thank you to everyone who replied here to help me with this issue! Very much appreciated :).

Posted 17 years ago #
Keilaron
Member

Glad everything's worked out okay :>
EDIT: Whoops. I forgot this was a laptop. This software might not work at all on your laptop, use with care. :<
By the way, you might be interested in getting a copy of SpeedFan or Motherboard Monitor (Note, however, that the MBM site is gone, gone, gone) to monitor your fans and heat sensors. If you get the manuals for your motherboard, CPU, and hard drive, you should be able to find what their max tolerances are. All my hard drives are rated for 5-55C (operating) temp, so I keep my alarms for those set to 45C ('cept for my WDC drive, which I keep at 47C because that thing overheats if you do so much as look at it).

Posted 17 years ago #

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