I recently acquired a computer from a cousin of mine, which got quite nice hardware in it compared to my old one. There is a problem, however. Whenever I try to play Empires (or any other game) the computer crash about 10-25 seconds into the game and gives me a black screen, like it went into stand by mode or something. The computer is custom built, and used to work perfectly. Some specs: *OS - Microsoft Windows XP Professional *CPU - DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2700 MHz (13.5 x 200) 5200+ *Motherboard - Asus M2A-VM (2 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Video, Gigabit LAN) *Video card - NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT (512 MB) *DirectX - 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c) *RAM - Two DIMM1: Kingston KTC1G-UDIMM 1 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM *Audio - Realtek ALC883 @ ATI SB600 - High Definition Audio Controller I've re-installed the OS, updated all drivers, checked for abnormal temperatures and ran a memtest86 with no errors. Anyone got a clue what could possibly be causing this?
Which games have you tried? Maybe try to find a program that launches full screen that isn't a game and try that?
If it's not the RAM, then the next best guess is the graphics card. Or maybe something is wrong with the power supply.
I've tried a variety of games, nothing works. I'm going to try with another graphics card tomorrow and hopefully that will solve the problem.
it still could be the PSU ... depending on the actual type of the card (yes i know its a 9600 but the nvidia site shows there would be 2 versions in terms of power consumption?) it can drain up to around 100W on its own. but really, just swapping components is the fastest way to find out :D
It may be the power supply. I did a quick search and your problem sounds pretty close to this: http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t58523.html Also, maybe try running this? http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp
i vote psu, if graphics card is broken you wouldnt see a black screen unless you constantly see a black screen probably the graphics card is partially to blame though, like it needs too much power and psu (possibly broken) doesnt have that many or cant keep up with the spikes that well i suggest buying a new psu of at least 100w more then the one you have now if you want to be sure buy one of +400w, should not cost too much but still take the psu permanently out of the picture, also it should prevent any problems later on, a better psu is a healthier computer for longer life and should not be saved too much on) if you already have a 400w psu, its probably borked if the problem does not end there, you have bigger problems, but the psu of +400w is a good investment in a second hand computer anyway, to lengthen its life a little then try taking out some memory and swapping the gpu for something cheap (to save money you can buy a crappy second hand one, congratulations you just acquired your first test hardware) one by one, try to find the "damaged" parts by replacing/removing them, its simple deduction for when you know its hardware but cant seem to find it, although my experience is yelling PSU at me
I got a 520w PSU, shouldn't be a problem. I've switched the graphics card however and things seem to be working fine now. Thanks for the help guys.
