Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > Reference > Help Forum > I think it's the graphics card...

[Omecle]

Well, a problem I am having as of late is that whenever I try to run Final Fantasy XI I'll get a random 15 minutes to 1 hour game time and then my computer suddenly shuts off -- except that the fans are still running and I have to turn it off from the back to start it up again!

I'm not really sure what could cause this... I have a relatively decent computer and Final Fantasy XI is by no means a very CPU or GPU intensive game.

My specifications:
Intel Core2Duo 2.2GHZ 4MB Cache
nVidia 7800GS 256MB
3GB DDR400 RAM
450w Power Supply (I forget the model, but it's a CoolMaster)

I am thinking that it might have to do with the settings in the bios, and it doesn't seem to be an overheating issue (I've checked, there's also plenty of cooling and airflow).

Please, any one have any ideas? T_T

[Akaria]

That happened to my desktop when I would play The Sims 2. I'd be able to play for a bit, then the screen went black and into stand by, and when I'd try to turn it on again, it would go straight into stand by again; I'd have to restart the computer to get it back on. My dad and I had deduced that either my graphics card was going bum, or my motherboard was burning out. Turns out, the fan on my graphics card was burned out and coming loose, which...Obviously isn't good. I'd say take it out, make sure nothing is physically wrong with the card itself, and of course check it in detail since there are so many tiny components. If it looks fine, if you have another computer, try switching the cards and play FFXI with the other one. If it works fine, it's your card. If not, you have bigger issues.

Hope that helps a little!

[Omecle]

Hmm, well I have checked the card and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it visually. Unfortunately I don't have another computer or graphics card to test it on...

I checked the nVidia monitor while I was playing and I had the GPU at 47-50 degrees (Celsius I think?). CPU was at 17% and memory was at something like 10% (this is with the 2048x2048 background texture resolution and 15 drawdistance at 1680x1050).

Hmm, it's really baffling me. This sometimes happened (very rarely, like twice out of a month) when I played WoW mid-last year.

Edit:

Did a 10 minute stress test, not sure what it means:
CPU Stress Test status: 55 passes completed
Memory Stress Test status: 34 passes completed
Disk Stress Test status: 40 passes completed
GPU Stress Test status: 57 passes completed

By the way, in the last week it wasn't doing this and has just started recently. I am really baffled as to what is wrong...

[o_O]

It's likely that the powering off is caused by your CPU overheating. It's a defense mechanism built into chips to stop them from blowing.

[Omecle]

I don't know why it would be doing that. I have installed one of these on the CPU...

Any suggestions on what steps I should take from here?

[rubah]

have you installed any applications to tell you what temperature your cpu is at?

[Momiji]

If his computer was overheating, wouldn't there be artifacts all over his screen? My desktop overheated once and it damaged the video card, now it leaves artifacts everywhere no matter what temperature it is.

[Omecle]

Originally Uttered by rubah

have you installed any applications to tell you what temperature your cpu is at?

Ah, no. I've just tested the GPU temperature... Any suggestions for a program that will do this?

Originally Uttered by Momiji

If his computer was overheating, wouldn't there be artifacts all over his screen? My desktop overheated once and it damaged the video card, now it leaves artifacts everywhere no matter what temperature it is.

Not necessarily. My graphics card isn't damaged.