Games keep minimizing!?!?!?

[pcrobot]

I just built my PC, and I'm enjoying the nice boost of speed, perfromance and graphics... But, all my games (in the middle of games, and load scenes... so basically anywhere in the game) every few minutes suddenly minimize. It's very annoying!

Any ideas? (My specs are in my sig if you need them...)
Thanks!

 

[Techguru75]

Do you have Norton installed on your computer? Is LiveUpdate attempting to update?

Do you have a bad habit of hitting the Windows Key on the keyboard? (laughs) It seems silly but I had a friend do this a while. He finally took a pocketknife and popped off the Windows keys.

 

[pcrobot]

Do you have Norton installed on your computer? Is LiveUpdate attempting to update?

Do you have a bad habit of hitting the Windows Key on the keyboard? (laughs) It seems silly but I had a friend do this a while. He finally took a pocketknife and popped off the Windows keys.

No, I still have to install McAfee, though I'm thinking about trying Windows CareLive Beta...

And, no, I'm not hitting the Windows key. I double-click on the game icon on the desktop, the game starts to load then minimizes. Then in the middle of game-play it happens again. (and again, etc.)

 

[Techguru75]

hmmm.....online game? try a good pop-up blocker

Question...are you on broadband? cable or dsl? using a router?

 

[pcrobot]

hmmm.....online game? try a good pop-up blocker

Question...are you on broadband? cable or dsl? using a router?

No online games, just NFSU2 demo and COD demo, etc.
And my kid brother played one of his games on it and that would do the same thng as well.

I have cable in a wireless setup.

 

[Techguru75]

Are you using a router or just coming straight off the cable modem to the computer?

Are you using any type of firewall? I believe that you have a pop-up problem, probably linked to some sort of adware. Check your "Add/Remove" program list for any type of program that isn't familiar to you, and remove it(them).

So many people are confused often by the fact that they are on cable or dsl and figure that they don't need a firewall or any type of protection on their broadband line. They figure that the ISP or the cable company has that covered, when they really don't.

 

[Trotter]

Make sure you don't have ANYTHING running in the background. Sounds like something kicking in and knocking you out of action.

Oh, and make sure your screensaver is off.

 

[Nitestick]

i agree with trotter. some process is stealing focus from the game. run some spyware scans and find out whats running in the background.

 

[pcrobot]

I'm using a cable modem that goes to a router, and my PC has a wireless card.

I actually just installed the firewall (McAfee) last night, which was after the problems began.

I tried running the program with Folding turned off, and I didn't have any more problems. I've never had that happen with Folding before. But, I'm using the graphical folding client... I'm going to switch to the console client once it finishes the current W/U. So... I might have figured out the problem, IDK...