Black screen, computer restarting

[Rain321]

So whenever I start a game, about 3-5 minutes in, my screen will go all black, my computer will freeze and restart itself. Upon restarting I try again and thing happens. It'll freeze and restart. At one point I got a blue screen of death but I barely got the chance to read any information on there as it restarted.

I have absolutely no idea what is causing this or how to fix it, I was hoping you guys could give me some guidance as I'm not that great with computers.

I would greatly appreciate any assistance.

Thanks in advance.

Ivan

 

[carnageX]

What OS are you running? What are your hardware specs? What game is it?

Firstly, disable automatic restart by doing this (assuming you have Windows 7... XP is similar, and Vista/Win8 are the same pretty much).

Start > Right click 'Computer' > Properties > click 'Advanced System Settings' on the left panel > under 'Startup and Recovery' click 'Settings...' > under 'System Failure' uncheck 'Automatically Restart' > Click OK on all open dialogs.

After that, if you get a BSOD, post the info that's pointed to by the red arrows in this topic:
http://www.techist.com/forums/f128/decoding-stop-errors-193078/
For the 2nd arrow, include the full STOP code, as well as if there is a driver file indicated below the STOP error (will be a *.dll or *.sys file).

Also, what are your temps while running the game? Download HWMonitor and post some screenshots while the game is running before you crash.

 

[Rain321]

I'm running windows 7. It happens regardless of what game I play.

I think I may have figured out the cause, something to do with "Nvidia Kernel 3.14 " or something like that? As my monitor just went black (it happened just now whilst not playing a game). But it managed to recover hence I was able to obtain that information.

If you still think I should do all the things you said on your first reply, I shall. Not sure if it's necessary after that information though?

Hardware:

12 gigs ram

GFX: NVIDIA GTX 580

Quad core

 

[carnageX]

Try updating your graphics drivers first from World Leader in Visual Computing Technologies | NVIDIA

 

[Rain321]

When this started occurring I had the latest graphics drivers installed. Looking through the event log under the administrive tools I have found the following critical error stated under "kernel power" "ID: 41"

EventData
BugcheckCode 278
BugcheckParameter1 0xfffffa8010986010 BugcheckParameter2 0xfffff8800fee7630 BugcheckParameter3 0xffffffffc000009a BugcheckParameter4 0x4 SleepInProgress false PowerButtonTimestamp 0

 

[SCxnoxiousTechie]

Updating the graphics drivers will help it a lot , check this one as well Windows Kernel event ID 41 error "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" in Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2

 

[Rain321]

Updating the graphics drivers will help it a lot , check this one as well Windows Kernel event ID 41 error "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" in Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2

Thanks for your response! I have ensured my graphics drivers are up to date, even un-installed and reinstalled them.

 

[carnageX]

If it's still doing it, try an older version.

 

[Rain321]

I found my old ATI graphics card, I replaced it for my nvidia GTX 580 and the problem seems to have stopped. Thanks so much for taking time to respond to me.

 

[Joe C]

Your GTX card could still be o.k. and a weak power supply could be causing the reboots...it's possible that this new GTX draws more watts that your old ATI card and when the new card demands more watts, the psu fails to produce

what brand name and wattage is your power supply?



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