What is wrong with my computer? (Shutting down whilst playing games)

[tilatequila]

Hi guys, Ive had this problem with my computer and im not entirely sure whats wrong.

Basically ive had my computer since late 2009 (i think) well anyway my setup for it has pretty much been the same since on my desk. Back then it played wow really smoothly, easily 60fps on mild/high graphics. Well anyway i quit wow in mid 2011 and didnt really do much gaming after that, then came the release of skyrim so i thought id check it out.. got it for christmas and didnt try it out till after the new years of 2012.. Whilst playing the game for only a few minutes it would randomly shut down out of nowhere. Just flick off.. no warning no nothing, i thought it was just skyrim so i didnt really bother too much about it and never played skyrim again lol.

Anywho then not long later i reinstalled wow and used my 10days of free gaming to try out the new patch 4.3.. it seemed to run wow decent but this time whenever i was in a raid e.g 25man or in org when it was packed my computer would randomly shut down like it did with skyrim. Or sometimes it would run the game fine for hours or sometimes i would just play for 5mins and it would shut down. This got me thinking that theres something wrong with my computer, so i researched it and found a few problems it may be (power failure, overheating and a few other things) I assumed it was because i had never cleaned out the fans in my computer, so i got a small vacuum opened up my computer and got A LOT of dust that was covering / clogged in two of the fans in my computer. Well yeah after i done that my computer seemingly seemed to be ok (i think it may have shut down randomly a few times after i cleaned it though) and my 10days expired and i didnt worry about it after that.

Well yeah now its present day, i have reinstalled all the sims 3 games on my computer and its doing the same thing again... i can play the game for a hour or 2 fine or i can just be loading my play world and my computer will randomly shut down.

What could be wrong? my computer hasent always been like this. It can still run less high quality games such as WC3 and Age of mythology fine just with the more higher detail / data games my computer seems to play up with. Im not a computer genius but i notice it shuts down when there is lots of things to load / loading or when there is a lot going on.

Any advice would be appreciated! thankyou

[Deleted]

Sounds like a PSU issue to me. Could be overheating as well, or a mix of the two (PSU overheating?).

I would take canned air and clean the fans/components properly before proceeding though. Get a temperature reading software and check the temps on GPU and CPU. Generally if overheating though, you will either get a BSOD or a video driver failure.

[Nekrosislol]

Sounds like its over heating, maybe try dusting it out (wont go into details how to do it, simply google search and research before cleaning it out! So you dont mess something up).

Could also be your PSU not pumping enough power to run these games (one above more likely)

Good luck hope you figure it out!

[tilatequila]

Sounds like a PSU issue to me. Could be overheating as well, or a mix of the two (PSU overheating?).

I would take canned air and clean the fans/components properly before proceeding though. Get a temperature reading software and check the temps on GPU and CPU. Generally if overheating though, you will either get a BSOD or a video driver failure.

Thankyou both for the input, but i also have one more query. My data drive is nearly full, could this be whats causing it too? and if so how do i make more room in it? ive tried disc clean up for it but nother ever works -__-

[Deleted]

Thankyou both for the input, but i also have one more query. My data drive is nearly full, could this be whats causing it too? and if so how do i make more room in it? ive tried disc clean up for it but nother ever works -__-

You open it up and delete shit you don't need that's the only way. You could use SpaceMongler to see which folders/files takes up most space, but still it is your choice to delete it

[neuk]

What are your PC specs and what make is your PSU?

[Thelxi]

I've had that happen with 2 computers, both when the summer heat really kicked in.