Windows 7: System reseting when gaming gets INTENSE .

my system resets as soon as a game gets graphically intense. Is it because of im putting my gfx card through too much stress ? or is it because im bottle-necking the gfx card with an inferior processor and motherboard?



please advice and thank you for your valued time

What do you mean it resets? Just shuts down and reboots?

If so, any error messages or Blue Screen?


If not, one likely culprit would be the Power Supply not being up to the job when the GPU is under load.

What type of Power Supply do have?

The screen goes blank, the GPU fan begins to spin a full 100% cycle speed, making a racket,the current game freezes, i know this cause of the audio within game keep repeating itself which is also annoying as HELL and continues to do so untill i hit the restart switch on the case.

it reboots. it boots up normally. As if i have turned it on after a shutdown. As you can see my system specifications. MY current power supply is a mere 550 watts. An inferior brand i must add. Im thinking of getting another 1 TB external for my backup as-well.

i need recommendations as in what safe PSU is should go for. getting a 1000 Watts would bleed me dry LOL

A 1000w for a 4870 is massive overkill - a good quality 550w/620/650w etc would be sufficient.

Corsair, seasonic, some Antecs etc are a few decent brands.

Assuming it's a power supply problem that is - from the symptoms it could also be a dying card, bad ram etc

dying card

i hope not, i paid a nice amount for that

Power supply by the sound of it

I suspect a Power as well. A Corsair 550 should be plenty. (Im partial to Corsair PSUs and always recommend them though, there are other good brands as suggested)

As smarteyeball has suggested, it could also be a couple other things.

Forunately, RAM can be tested quite easily, and with Free tools.

I think it would probably be a good idea to start with RAM, and test it so we can get a better idea what we are loking at.

No point running out and buying parts you do not need.


For the RAM:
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool
You can either burn it to CD, or USB. Boot from whichever you choose and run through the tests. I would let it loop through 2-3 times at least.

If that comes out Ok, chances are RAM is fine.

How long have you had this card in this rig? And how long has it been occurring?

It's unlikely that it is the card - but it is not an impossibility.

I had very similar symptoms with a 4890 that turned out to have a faulty voltage regulator on the card itself. The voltage would fluctuate wildly, even spiking over 2v which is way out of spec.

At the time this issue drove me mad trying to find the culprit and it was actually by sheer luck I noticed it while monitoring the card with GPU-Z



My screen would go black (sometimes grey, red) - the fan ramped up to 100%, audio looped etc. Eventually it got so bad that it would do it at the desktop and then even in BIOS.

I'm not saying that this is what's happening to you - but it's a possibility.






I'd be inclined to suspect the PSU as well (insufficient amps on the 12v rail) or something inside the PSU has degraded to the point where it's being pushed too much under load and the lockups are the result.

But as WM said, there's no point in rushing out and buying anything until you have narrowed it down by eliminating other potential culprits.

The card should also be displaying one or two Red LEDS on the back of it when it's locked up. Depending on the lights, they can sometimes help point you in the right direction.

Good hunting

I had the same problem last year, replacing the PSU did not fix the problem so I had to buy a new GPU and PSU.

manual reboot usually does the trick. other wise the system beeps thrice and doesnt boot. Three to four lights are displayed at the back of the card when this happens. But i figured it was a loose contact of VGA cable that connects the card and the screed. A slight nudge and manual reboot later usually does the trick.

Thanks for the ram test, ill check it out as soon as i get home from work.

and all this nonsense has been happening for quite a long time now