WoW restarting computer

[Shadyen]

I put "restarting computer" into the search engine and didn't get anything, so i'm posting.


My computer will randomly restart while playing WoW. I watched Fantastic Four on my comp last night and didn't have any problems. Also, I've never had it restart while surfing the web, so I believe it is a WoW problem.

I looked up on the WoW site and it said to disable the automatic restart(which i did), but its still restarting my comp. I guess Windows XP has a default restart anytime it comes to an error. The point of disabling was to see the error message then go from there... but i'm still not getting an error message, just the restart.

It happens at the most random of times. never when i'm in a BG or a group, typically just when i finish one or the other.

any help would be appreciated, thx

Shadyen

[Kalos]

Hoe does it restart? Does it drop down to Windows, or does Windows itself fail and it drops to the BIOS start up (The black screen with the writing on)?

What are your system specifications, what can you tell us about the hardware operating this computer?

Right now, depending on your discription and further details, I think it might be some poor quality ram.

[Shadyen]

Thanks for replying. I'm not computer savvy enough to say what my "specs" are or even what you're looking for in a response. I was actually just hoping that someone else had experienced the problem, since WoW knows about it and has addressed it. Just unfortunatly, their "fix" didn't work for me. oh well...


As far as how it restarts, its just like if i were to restart it from the "start" menu. I'll be playing along, then my screen goes black and starts up. I've been playing WoW since it came out on this computer, so i assumed it had something to do with a patch i downloaded.

Shadyen

[Tunga]

As far as how it restarts, its just like if i were to restart it from the "start" menu.So it actually shuts down properly, then boots back into Windows? Or it goes instantly to the start of the bootup process?

[Kalos]

To be honest, there are many potential causes of restarts as you discribe, meaning finding someone who suffers the same kind of restart won't help you, because the chaces are while the symptom is the same, it's a very general symptom to wide range of 'diseases' if you will. Each of these ailments needs to be tackled in a different manner.

We'll need to work out more data, such as thermal temperatures and such. A spontaneous restart can be caused by overheating. Driver glitches are a pain, but they're fixed by reinstalling Windows most of the time. Bad hardware instability can be tested through programs like Memtest.

[rgirty]

I had a machine respond in this manner, I have known a few people who did as well.

They all found them to be heat related.

You could try and dig out more data, which would certainly help but I'll give you the redneck way of determining the problem that I used.

1. I took a side off the case.
2. I applied a box fan (large fan like 3x2feet) and stood it beside the comp.
3. Played wow.
4. No problems.

Conclusion for me? Cpu fan working, replaced video card (thought about just replacing the fan but needed a new vid card anyway).

1. placed new vid card in machine.
2. put side back on
3. played wow.

NO restarts, fixt.

[Shadyen]

hmm... reason to get a new video card... sounds good to me! upon restart i did open up the panel and make sure all the fans were working. which they were, but i guess the restart could've made them all active again.


I'll ask around work to see if anyone can give me some hints on which card to get or how I know if it will go in my comp... thanks for all your responses, much appreciated!


Shadyen

[Kalos]

If I may, we might be able to offer assistence in that regard, or at least some opinions. We can help you work out which graphical slot you have at least. This program: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php Can reveal the information on certain hardware in your PC, especially the CPU. But we want to go to the 'Mainboard' tab and take a screenshot, upload it to somewhere like photobucket or another image holding site, and show us. It's so we can see the 'Graphic interface' section, so we can tell you what to buy basically :smiley: