PC question again.

[yankee bees girlie]

so i think ive finally got everything ok with my computer after a long process of switching out parts. but im still having a problem.

when we play Sim City the shit shuts down after awhile. and im so very annoyed about it.

heres what i have currently in my computer.


1.40GHz AMD Athlon processor
1.50 GB of RAM
Microsoft XP Pro
X-Power 550w ATX Switching Power Supply
RADEON 9600 SERIES vid card
Soundblaster Live Gamer card
Maxor 40 gig
Maxtor 120 gig
Memorex 52x24x52 drive
CPU temp is 49°c/120°F

what the **** should be the problem here

[yankee bees girlie]

If its having problems running Sim City, i'm not about to install Doom or UT for it to happen there .

[Banana]

so i think ive finally got everything ok with my computer after a long process of switching out parts. but im still having a problem.

when we play Sim City the shit shuts down after awhile. and im so very annoyed about it.

heres what i have currently in my computer.


1.40GHz AMD Athlon processor
1.50 GB of RAM
Microsoft XP Pro
X-Power 550w ATX Switching Power Supply
RADEON 9600 SERIES vid card
Soundblaster Live Gamer card
Maxor 40 gig
Maxtor 120 gig
Memorex 52x24x52 drive
CPU temp is 49°c/120°F

what the **** should be the problem here
I've highlighted the problem for you.

[Alex]

Could be anything. Is it completely stable doing everything else?

[coojee67]

(Advanced warning - computer geek info attached!)

I've had similar annoying problems with games crashing recently. My system was working fine running Half Life 2 and Everquest 2, but when I tried running World of Warcraft I'd get anything from 10 seconds up to 45 minutes of play before my PC would either completely freeze in-game with the sound looping, reboot itself, or crash to desktop.

My problems turned out to be because my power supply wasn't meaty enough. It took me a while to work this out as I used to have a 400W Q-Tec PSU and I figured 400W was more than enough power. After some investigation I found that the wattage isn't a consistent indicator of the quality of the PSU and there are good and bad PSU's, with Q-Tec PSUs being rated as very bad. I bought an Akasa Paxpower 460W PSU and it's solved my problems.

I tried doing some research on the net for X-Power PSUs but I can't find much at all on them, although I notice they're pretty inexpensive ($20) which to me isn't a good sign. Upwards of £50 ($100) is what I'd expect to pay for a "quality" PSU, and I know that Antec and Akasa are good makes. Of course the problem is that you might not have PSU problems and spending $100 on something that doesn't solve things is a bit of a kick in the teeth. However...if you want to play the latest games, then investing in a decent power supply is a good idea for the future. The newer graphics cards are becoming more and more power hungry and with all the extra stuff people are trying to cram into their computer cases, the lower quality power supplies are being stressed beyond their capabilities.

Stuff you can try for free though:
- Try using different versions of the Ati Catalyst graphics drivers, if you haven't done so already, upgrade the Catalyst drivers to the latest version.
- Try unplugging anything from the power supply (case fans, CD drive etc.) that isn't essential and try running the game (note: I tried this and it didn't do me any good though!).
- This is a real pain in the ass, but you could try a complete operating system re-install. I did that a few times, and it least proved my problems were more than likely to be hardware rather than software related.
- It's possible one of your memory chips might be faulty. You can use a freeware program called "memtest" to check out your memory for any faults.

The bad news is that with these kinds of problems it's really difficult to work out whether it's hardware or software related, and it could be down to a faulty motherboard or graphics card which are really hard to diagnose without swapping them out. It's really just a case of eliminating things from your investigations one by one, but i know how frustrating it is when all you want to do is just chill out and play the effing computer game. I work in I.T so fixing my PC at home isn't on the top of my list of leisure activities.

If you need any more help either post something on here or drop me an email at coojee67@yahoo.co.uk.