My computer keeps shutting off while playing games.I'm not sure what the problem could be because I updated the driver and every time it shuts off it comes back on and it doesnt display any error messages and my cable modem gets unconnected so i have to restart the computer every time after the game crashes.

WinXP
Pentium 4 3.60 GHz
1 GB of ram
ATI Radeon x850 xt Platinum Edition

Welcome to PCHF.

This might be caused by a program updating itself than rebooting. Suggest you keep tract of the times that this happens. If it occurs at the same time of day or at a regular interval, then check all of the programs on the task bar. One of them might have an option to download updates at that time of day or at a regular interval (example every 8 hours).

Also, check the memory requirements for your games. Do you have enough memory to play the game?

Good Luck...

I checked my running programs and that doesnt seem to be it. I still cant figure it out. I have the right requirements to play the games I have. I've played five games and they knock the computer off after 20 min. at the most usually ranging from 15-20 min. The only game that lasts longer is Warrock and strangely the computer shuts off when someone throws a grenade and right when it hits the computer goes off. Warrock is the only online game i play. The other games are Overlord, You Are Empty, Fable: The Lost Chapters and Tomb Raider Anniversary. The only thing I can think of is maybe it has something to do with my psu. The first psu I had came with the case I bought and it lasted almost a year then I bought a used power supply and it lasted 2 months and now I have a COLORSit 480watt psu which I got pretty cheap. Do I need a better psu to pull the power from my graphics card?

PSUs are not something I'd recommend buying at a flee market. I am not a games expert, but if the programs draw on more spike power than your PSU can handle, then perhaps a better PSU would be helpful. I suggest one of the GAME experts, here at PCHF, add their input to this threat concerning the functionality of these game power requirements.

Good Luck...

There could be a few things happening here.

First i would look into a new PSU, there's a line called the BasiQ that is basically a no frills workhorse and isn't too expensive. I'd recommend NEVER putting used parts in your machine, you just never know what they've been through.

Second there's a chance that something's overheating. Generally a game will push your GFX card and CPU a lot harder than standard computing (running windows, surfing the net etc). If you could right click on My Computer and click on "manage", then go into the Event Viewer, then click on System Events, there will most likely be some useful information there. You will want to sort the errors by date and look for errors with the red stop sign icons next to them. Try and find one that coincides with the time that your machine shuts down. If there are too many, you can always clear the logs and then try to reproduce ther error. Likely, something that's causing your machine to reboot like that will generate an error event there, you may also have to do the same under the Application Events just to make sure it's not a coincidental application fault.

Have you resolved this problem?

I'm still having the same problem but I found some information that might help in the event viewer.
I was playing F.E.A.R. and my computer shut off at 4:27 pm...here is the info from event viewer:
Event Type: Information
Event Source: ACEEventLogSource
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 7/7/2007
Time: 4:27:01 PM
User: N/A
Computer: BILLY-CFEF947DB
Description:
0000000001: 2007-07-07 16:27:00:500 Failed to merge manifest file: C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\skins\ccc-skins.xml with exception: Could not find file 'C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\skins\ccc-skins.xml'.
Error Called by: ATI.ACE.CLI.Foundation.MergeManifest::ReadManifest processID:00508 threadID ) domainNameccc.exe ) assemblyNameCLI.Foundation.XManifest, Version=2.0.2665.42240, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=90ba9c70f846762e)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Event Type: Information
Event Source: ACEEventLogSource
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 7/7/2007
Time: 4:27:15 PM
User: N/A
Computer: BILLY-CFEF947DB
Description:
0000000002: 2007-07-07 16:27:15:984 Exception <Load>: Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Branding.dll' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
Exception Called by: ATI.ACE.LOG.Foundation.Implementation.Branding::Lo adBrandingResource processID:00508 threadIDCCCThreadNew:Systemtray) domainNameccc.exe ) assemblyNameLOG.Foundation.Implementation, Version=2.0.2720.25311, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=90ba9c70f846762e)
************************************************** ************************************************** ********************

Event Type: Information
Event Source: ACEEventLogSource
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 7/7/2007
Time: 4:27:16 PM
User: N/A
Computer: BILLY-CFEF947DB
Description:
0000000003: 2007-07-07 16:27:16:062 Exception <atixcode.dll>: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {981145A7-E08E-48F3-A1C4-52C28BCAAAF9} failed due to the following error: 80040154.
Exception Called by: ATI.ACE.CLI.Aspect.TransCode.Graphics.Shared.TC_Co mponent::CheckTrancodeComObject processID:00508 threadIDCCCThreadNew:Wizard) domainNameccc.exe ) assemblyNameCLI.Aspect.TransCode.Graphics.Shared , Version=2.0.2665.42198, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=90ba9c70f846762e)
************************************************** ************************************************** ********************


These 3 errors came up right when my computer shut off and I have no idea what it means....If you could let me know what all this means it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your ongoing support