Computer restarts itself within 5 minutes

[TownPsycho]

Hello all,

My friend told me about WoW and how it was a fun game so I signed up for the 10-day trial. I downloaded the full client, and then opened the game up to play. I typed in my name and password, and when I clicked the button to log in, the computer restarted itself out of nowhere. No error message or anything. So I tried again and the same thing happened. I tried a few more times and each time I got a little further, like I was able to get passed logging in, but once I started making my character, my computer restarted again.

My biggest problem is, I've searched all over for a solution to this problem and everyone says "Go to 'My Computer', 'Properties', 'System', and all that, and then uncheck the box that says, 'Automatically Restart', and hit 'Ok'". Well, I've done that, and then played again to see if I could get an error message, but the same thing happened! My computer restarted itself automatically. I double checked to see if the box was still unchecked and it was.

When I updated my graphics driver to the latest version, the game wouldnt even open, it said it couldn't start 3D acceleration, and when I ran the Direct3D Acceleration test with dxdiag, it failed on the 7th, 8th, and 9th steps or whatever they were. So I tried some older versions and found out that this 3D Acceleration problem occurs with every version of the driver newer than 7.8. So I have that version installed, but I have no idea how to fix this problem. Some computer specs:

OS: Windows XP Home Edition
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
System Model: A7N8X-E
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3200+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz
RAM: 1536MB
DirectX 9.0c

Video Card: Radeon 9600 Series
256 MB
Display Mode: 1280 x 1024 (16 bit) (60 Hz)

Also, before this I could play games like Battlefield 2142 with no problem...

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated, I can't find a solution anywhere!

[Kalos]

If it's failing the Direct3D tests, this is very bad. I'd suggest wipe and reinstallation of Windows itself, and hope it's just some bad software. But I think that that ancient 9600 has just died. By the look of the crashes, it's a thermal issue, but the DirectX test failures add a whole new spin on the situation.

[TownPsycho]

Well I have never had a problem with the Direct3D before I updated the new drivers, and when I searched around many other people had the same issue with the ATI cards. When I downgraded back to 7.8 everything worked fine. The 9600 isn't that bad and I had installed it just about a year ago and it has been working fine ever since. Once again, failing the 3D tests only occurs with a driver version passed 7.8. When I use 7.8, it works fine. And I am still able to play games like Battlefield 2142 with the graphics set high. The video card works fine with everything, so I don't even know if that's the issue with World of Warcraft. Like, when I go to system requirements lab and check World of Warcraft it says I pass on everything with recommended settings.

Also, it's unlikely to be an overheating issue because I ran the Asus Probe, which monitors the temperature of the comp, and I checked it like every 30 seconds when I had WoW open and there was nothing abnormal, and the temp read fine.

[infernoxrocks]

Kalos think it could be an issue with this card vs the display setting to such a high res? I have seen older cards act like this during video reset (since most games default res is 800x600) And 1280x1024 is a large res.

Also dont most new cards run at 32 bit not 16? I have seen that setting kick to the desktop but not reset a comp.

Try a smaller res and bumping to 32 bit. But Kalos' suggestion might be all u need to do as well.

[Kalos]

It could be I suppose. Usually the game just crashes if you push the resolution beyond the hardware's capacity, but it wouldn't be original for the whole system to go. I think screwy software is the first port of call, as it's the easiest to disprove; but trying to get that resolution down couldn't hurt.