Random lock ups and restarts while gaming

[M@$t3r_N30]

I am not a huge gamer. My main games include WoW, Half-life 2, and UT2004. My system is not fancy and is a few years old - Sempron 2600+, 6800XT, 1gig ram (512x2).

The problem I have is random restarts while playing games. For example, in WoW, The screen will lock up for a few seconds and the system will reboot. This happens fairly often, every few hours or so. Sometimes it can go days without it and sometimes it is every 20 minutes. This also happens in Unreal Tournament, and all the Half life games.

Now the strange part, I dualboot Windows Xp and Ubuntu. I can run WoW in WINE without the reboots. It still does the screen lock ups about as often, but instead of rebooting after a few seconds, it just pops back into action. I

I don't really know where to start with this. I replaced the powersupply with a nice Thermaltake 430W. I have also heard that it could be bad ram or a heat problem.

Any advice on what to check/try would be awesome. Thanks!

 

[decibaL]

have you tried running memtest?

if not you can get it here --> Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

 

[M@$t3r_N30]

No, I have not. Thanks, I'll get it going now and report the results.

 

[Ste]

4 hours minimum.

The test never ends, therefore we place a minimum time on it..

 

[M@$t3r_N30]

Thanks, I'll let it run overnight (10 hours or so). Do I have to test each stick individually, or will it be okay with both sticks in?

It's going now, What exactly am I looking for - error count?

 

[Ste]

You don't "have" to test each stick separtly, however it may come to that down the road.

The greater the amount of errors present the more likely the problem is being caused by bad ram..

 

[M@$t3r_N30]

If it turns out that the ram is fine, what else could it be and why would it crash on Windows but not Linux?

 

[b1gapl]

My first thought would be the system, not getting enough power, but you said you bought a new one....and that 430W has more than enough power, for that system. So just report back to us, the results of the memtest. If it's fine, we'll see.

 

[M@$t3r_N30]

Yea, I figured 430 was plenty. I will post the results from memtest tomorrow morning. Good night .

 

[M@$t3r_N30]

Okay, 12 hours running and no errors. What next?