COD4 PC shuts down help pls

[Noxvayl]

Of course there's a chance. Didn't you read the original postings? Cheap, no-name PSUs (and even some with a name, like Hiper) do not supply clean, stable power to their supposed rating.

Of course I did but did you read the persons post in question? Different person same problem and well branded high quality Coolermaster PSU brand spanking new to boot... Plus I have the same problem with a 500W Silverstone ST50EF PLUS PSU which is also good quality and more than adequate to supply my system.

Then so that you learn something from this the original person with the problems had a 500W PSU. Now lets say that the PSU performed around 10% worse than what it said on the box because according to you no brand PSU's don't supply the right amount of power. That means it would supply 450W new... now give it about 10% more power loss for degradation over the time it has been used> Now the PSU supplies 405W of power. Now lets take his system shall we P4D 3Ghz, 1.5Ghz RAM(taken as 2x512Mb and 2x256Mb because that would pull the most power), 8800GTS 320Mb and his 9 fans(taken all as 120mm because they are beasts). Now we don't know how many HDD or DVD drives so I put 2 of each just to be sure. Now use this link and add those components to the calculator> eXtreme Outer Vision - eXtreme tools for computer enthusiasts

Now as you can see he has 20W to spare even with a ****ty PSU. Now that we have sorted out that his PSU was more than adequate lets look at another thing you failed to notice. The computer shuts down... it shows a screen saying shutting down and slowly goes about closing programs and eventually goes off. How would that be possible if the PSU wasn't able to supply enough power because as far as I know you need power to shut down. If the PC tried to draw too much power then the PSU would shut its circuits down to stop it from being damaged because its not capable of of supplying the power. That means when you go over the limit for your PSU your PC just all of a sudden becomes dead... it doesn't start to shut down.

Rubbish. It might not be hardware related, it could be driver. But it could easily be hardware related, such as over-heating. Indeed sometimes the driver problems are due to crashes that happened because of a hardware fault.

Like any problem you have to troubleshoot it:

1. Make sure that the little things are OK. Check that all your cables are firmly connected, check the CPU & particularly GPU fans are not clogged with dust (you may need to remove GPU one).

2. Update drivers; remove as many background programs as possible.

3. Make sure you don't have any malware on your system.

4. Remove any OC and see if the problem goes.

5. Start swapping out components if possible.

6. If you're satisfied it's not a hardware problem and steps 2/3 didn't solve it, then repair/recover/reinstall windows.

Not that what you said is completely wrong but in the problem specified thats not likely seeing though the PC shuts down and doesn't crash you fool. Come on read what the problem is... crashes and windows recoveries are likely to be hardware but not a shut down. It operates just like normal and you get no message after the shutdown saying windows recovered from an unexpected problem.

Man I hate it when people don't bother to actually read.

Then in case you get all up tight my temps were as follows when my PC decided to shut down by itself:
Motherboard: 42 degree's centigrade
CPU: 39 degree's centigrade
GPU: 59 degree's centigrade
GPU ambient: 40 degree's centigrade
HDD1 : 26 degree's centigrade
HDD2 : 34 degree's centigrade

None of which are anywhere near too hot for my components. Then to add to that I have played TF2 for 42Hours this past 2 weeks and not once did my PC shut down also another 10hours spent on CnC3 and Supreme Commander. None of my settings have been altered in any way for the past month yet when I re-installed COD4 this problem began.

All other possibilities have been ruled out so stop telling people to check things that are fine or suggesting components need to be changed when the problem logically couldn't be cause by them..

[sniperman]

Hi guys!

I was searching the web and came upon this forum to try and solve my problem!

I have the same problem, where my PC shuts down when I play COD4.

When I mean shut down, I meant shut down without any warning....

CPU switches off...
Screen switches off...
Fans switch off...
NO shutdown screen...
NO warnings/error messages...
Just - POOF TURN OFF -

When I try to switch the CPU on again RIGHT AFTER, it doesn't power on right away, and usually takes about 5 minutes before I can power the CPU again >_>;

I play other games that I THINK are graphic-intensive games like Flight Simulator X(?) or Crysis(?)
at pretty high settings, and I can play them for the whole day without any sort of
shutdowns, and it only occurs in COD4.

The only odd thing I noticed was that since I use an uninterrupted power supply unit to plug my
PC in

...the "OVERLOAD" signal keeps going on and off, like for 5 minutes it beeps a warning tone
...and minutes later, the "NORMAL" status signal resumes. >_>;

Any ideas or suggestions on what I can do?
Sorry if I wasn't too technical in my explanation...
I don't have too much personal experience with computer hardware T_T;

[Thorsson]

Going back to the original postings for a second (and I assure you that it's relevant). Poor AgentK doesn't know a thing about Power Supplies. It's not just about achieving the PSU's power rating. It's about supplying clean, stable power on the relevant rails. Go and look at any decent PSU review and you will see that many power supplies have problems. Some have been shown to literally explode before getting anywhere near their rating. More likely is that the 12v rail, which supplies the GFX card for instance, drops current when put under load.

And because you recognize the name does not guarantee a good PSU. Coolermaster, for instance, does not make PSUs. It badges PSUs made by various OEMs. Chances are that a cheap CM is not a good PSU. And even with some good makes, like Silverstone, you occasionally get a bad unit.

It's also completely untrue to say that a shutdown could not be caused by hardware, but a crash could. Bad drivers cause crashes. So does bad memory. So can a corrupt hard disk.

As far as instant shutdowns are concerned, these are very rare. Generally they happen because of hardware. For instance if your CPU fan stops spinning, then there's usually a setting in the BIOS to immediately shut down. Also if the CPU or motherboard gets too hot. Some (good) PSUs can shut down if they are overloaded or too hot. Others just do it randomly if they're on the way out. These are all hardware.

The point of this is that your UPS is showing "Overload". I'd have to suspect the PSU again. I don't know why COD4 should be putting more strain on the system than Crysis, unless it's simply that you play it for longer. Possibly, if the area to the back of the PC is not well ventilated the PSU is over-heating.

It's also possible that COD4 has a bug that causes an instant shutdown in some circumstances. IIRC some PS2 players complained of this, and they should all be running pretty much the same equipment.

[sniperman]

Thanks a lot for your help.

Turns out it was an overheating problem...which is strange because I use my pc in a room w/a good A/C >_>;

I had to remove the side of the tower chassis to play COD4, which thanfully for noobs like me, comes of pretty easily with mine so the cool air could come in.

I'll have my fans checked out, indeed one of them isn't working, particularly for the PSU, but at least I got to play now!

Thanks again!<3

[Gumshoe]

UPDATE!

For the record (Since this thread has some interest again) I've worked in IT support for over 10 years, so I'd like to think I have some what of a clue at troubleshooting this problem. I was suspicious about the PSU being at fault so did some more testing, my next step was to be sure it wasn’t just COD4 causing the problem. So I played other games and sure enough the problem occurred. Now, I can leave the PC on running office apps and stuff all day long, after about 20mins of playing a game however ‘ZAP’ the computer shuts off.
So, I took the side off my computer, the GFX card was cooking, but soon cooled down. I tried again keeping tabs on the temperature of components inside. All fine.
So to cut a long story short, my issue was also simply an over heating issue and it all boiled down to a conflict in fans causing the GFX card to over heat. This explains things too, obviously while playing games the cards works harder and gets hotter. I’ve repositioned one of my fans now and not had a reoccurrence of the problem.

Hope this helps,

[Gumshoe]

Another thought, I do think COD4 is more likely to put strain on the graphics cards. I put Delta Force Black Hawk down back on my system to test with. For the first time my new system played that game at all the top settings as default and I played it for a good hour before a shut down occurred. Because COD4 is one of the latest games, the defaults settings on my system are in the mid range and the shut down occurred after about 20mins, it’s clear that the game demands the maximum out of my GFX card to achieve average.

[Thorsson]

Well I'm glad that these problems are simply overheating. As far as the GFX card is concerned (in particular although this applies to all fans to some extent), you may well find, if you've had the card for a while, that disassembling the HSF (usually undoing a few screws and unplugging the fan connector is all you have to do) and then blowing/brushing the dust away will cure the overheating.

[nocturnal30]

Im new here and kinda lost.Trying to figure out something on my pc.When I play cod4 now , my pc will shut off after a few minutes.I mean shut off like someone hit the power button,just completly shut down.Restart computer-pc asks you if you want to start windows normally-then back to business again.I can surf the net or leave this thing on all day , no problem.I have an msi k9n platinum with amd 6000+cpu.2g kingston ram,oz 600 watt ps,one lg burner,soundblaster live sound card,and nvidia geforce 8800gtx card.Aftermarket cpu cooler,and antec 900 case with cooling fans coming out the wazoo!!!Keep in mind, I have been playing cod4 for a long time fine.I made it to commander online and think it's a blast.But now my pc is shutting down????My temps when I restart the pc are:cpu-31c, system 27c,and gpu 60c.I have never had a problem with overheating with this setup,and I believe it's a software thing.The reason I say this , is because this happened before too.Awhile back, when I would burn dvds,my pc would shut down just like now.My pc buddy thought it was the psu,so I bought the expensive oz unit and it still did it.We then thought it must be the burner,bought new better burner,still did it.I changed a dma number for the burner , in the bios,from 5 to 4 and it works fine now.Also,yesterday I installed latest nvidia drivers and updated cod4 to version 1.6.Can anyone help me please!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Noxvayl]

Since your PC is randomly turning off while stressing it the possibility of overheating is prominent but your motherboard could also be to blame. As your last problem like this was BIOS related you should go into the BIOS and load optimal settings(just reset settings to there optimal defaults) and check if that might not help. If you have an overclock you need to tweak all the settings you've made in order to see if maybe one of them is too low(timings)/high(frequency).

Other than that it could be possible that your PSU has degraded to a point where it is unable to supply enough Amps to your GFX while working 3D applications. In which case you would need a new PSU but I would try all other possibilities first.

[Ferral]

My PC has a habit of crashing or shutting down if the LDT to AGP frequency is set to auto (Also known as HTT - Hyper Threading on an AMD system)

I have to lock it to 200 Mhz with 16bit upstream / downstream and my system is stable so it could well be that if you are running an AMD system.

[nocturnal30]

Reverted back to my older nvidia drivers(2nd latest drivers) and everything seems to be working fine again.????weird.

[browbr00]

this exact same problem happened to me but I dont think that is is hardwhare related because I have both XP and vista installed on my computer and and this sudden swiching off only occurs in XP cod4 seems to run perfectly in vista can someone plz explain why cod4 only works properly in vista

[Noxvayl]

this exact same problem happened to me but I dont think that is is hardwhare related because I have both XP and vista installed on my computer and and this sudden swiching off only occurs in XP cod4 seems to run perfectly in vista can someone plz explain why cod4 only works properly in vista

XP sucks... Vista is better

It could always be your driver that is causing the problem because the XP and Vista versions are different. Try some new drivers and see if the problem persists.

[browbr00]

I was thinking that maby vista had a higher temp threshould than xp just a thought

[Noxvayl]

I was thinking that maby vista had a higher temp threshould than xp just a thought

Nah temp thresholds are hardware not software... software can't get hot. You have the same threshold for the same piece of hardware whether you use Linux, Mac OSX, Vista or XP...

My drivers caused my issues, typical nVidia drivers breaking things.