Computer crashes, need help.

[Mr. LL]

My PC has progresivly become worse. I firt noticed the problem when I would play a high end game my PC would just power off as if I pulled the cord from the wall, I would then have to unplug my PC for about 20 seconds until the light on the MOBO went off and then plug it back in and power it up.
At first if I took the side door off and had a fan blowing into the case it would be fine but now it crashes after about 30 min- 1 hr and if I don't have the fan blowing it will crash after a few minutes even with just the desktop.
Now I have noticed it will crash with the fan blowing when the HDD is being taxed. I recently down loaded a 300+ mb patch for World of Warcraft (I have not played it yet) and once it downloaded and then started to install the patch it keeps crashing while trying to install just like when I am playing a taxing game after a little while.

Right after it crashes I keep checking my CPU and MOBO and the heat levels look fine. All of the internal CPU, Power Supply, Video card and case fans are working. As soon as it crashed I did a touch check and nothing seemed overly hot.
I don't know what else to check or what to replace at this point. I don't want to replace several parts and then it not work.

Do any of you have any suggestions on what it could be or how to test/run diags to determine the problem? I don't have a lot to spend so I am trying not to replace a bunch of parts. Is there any chance it could be software, I don't think so though because up until recently the fan helped. I run upto date anti spyware and AV tools.

I am about at my wits end and really want to fix this for good.

 

[slick_tech15]

It could be your PSU, and your temps u are reading might not be correct. Doesnt seem like it could be anything else than overheating or the PSU.

 

[Mr. LL]

Thanks, that's probrably hat I willswap out first. Doesn anyone know of a way to test the PSU or the other hardware to determine if it is bad?

 

[jeremy]

download everest http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html
take screenshots of computer-->sensor and motherboard-->cpu , upload em to http://www.imgspot.com , after uploading each image youll see several links use the 5th one (Your Image in BBCode) on the reply

did you add/upgraded any hardware recently?

what do you mean by "then started to install the patch it keeps crashing while trying to install" , did it display some error message or there was a random restart or bsod? and if it display an error message what was it exactly

check the mobo for bad capacitors (perferably with a flashlight), see examples
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195
if youll find any, rma the mobo if still under warranty/or rma the pc if its a prebuilt/if its no longer under warranty then have em replaced at some electronic repair shop it wouldnt cost much

 

[Mr. LL]

download everest http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html
take screenshots of computer-->sensor and motherboard-->cpu , upload em to http://www.imgspot.com , after uploading each image youll see several links use the 5th one (Your Image in BBCode) on the reply

did you add/upgraded any hardware recently?

what do you mean by "then started to install the patch it keeps crashing while trying to install" , did it display some error message or there was a random restart or bsod? and if it display an error message what was it exactly

check the mobo for bad capacitors (perferably with a flashlight), see examples
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195
if youll find any, rma the mobo if still under warranty/or rma the pc if its a prebuilt/if its no longer under warranty then have em replaced at some electronic repair shop it wouldnt cost much

Thanks for the info. I checked the capacitors and they look good. I will check out the other tool too.

It is crashing every 5-20 minutes now so it doesn't seem like th patch was really making any difference it was just taxing the system like when I play a game it seems worse.