Age of Empires Forums

hi guys, new to the forum. was just going to ask ivr just installed aoe3 on my computer. was playing for a few hours and all of a sudden my computer restarts. ive got a 2gb graphics card so i cant see that overheating and ive ran memtest and got no errors. can you guys inform me of any  tools i can use to try and isolate the problem ill post my computer details shortly just not at homr atm.

Sure sounds like overheating to me. Just because your card is a 2GB graphics card certainly isn't un-overheat-able, especially if you're playing on max graphics for two hours. Additionally, it could be your processor or another component.

I'd recommend CoreTemp to monitor processor temperature and GPU-Z for GPU temp.

cheers yes valid point. when i was monitoring the system i used coretemp and saw that the max temperature i was recieving was 50 degrees although 20min after it restarted. not sure what caused it. i tooked the comp cover off and all 3 fans are working. ill post my computer details up in 10min or so.

so computer details are compaq presario running windows 7 64bit

 model: CQ3495AN  

ram: 4gb

graphic card: NVIDIA GeFORCE GTX 550 Ti

processor information as tacken from coretemp:

Processor        0
Package            0
Cores:            2 (Max 8)
Threads:        4 (Max 16)
Processor model:    Intel Core i5 650 (Clarkdale)
Processor name string:    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU         650  @ 3.20GHz
Platform:        LGA 1156 (Socket H) (PlatformID: 0x1)
Processor signature:    0x20655
Processor revision:    K0
Process node:        32 nm

Processor speed:    2574.41MHz (132.02 x 19.5)
Bus speed:        3168.50MHz (6.34 GT/s)
Bus ratio:        x24
Default speed:        3200.00MHz
Multiplier range:    x9.0 - x24.0
Max. turbo speed:        3467.00MHz
Max. turbo multiplier:    x26.0
Maximum TDP:        73.0 Watts
Instruction set:    MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, EM64T
Feature set:        VT, XD, EIST, HT
L1 data cache:        2 x 32 KiB, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size - 2 thread(s)
L1 unified cache:    2 x 32 KiB, 4-way set associative, 64-byte line size - 2 thread(s)
L2 cache:        2 x 256 KiB, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size - 2 thread(s)
L3 cache:        4 MiB, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size - 16 thread(s)

Just had the system restart.. what exactly happens is the game will be running fine, lo lag or anything, then all of a sudden it turns off.. checked the temp log for the GPU and it weas 53 degrees celcius which is fine isnt it? other processors were in their 40's which i think is also fine.. any other ideas could it be age of empires itself causing something..

just turn your graphics down bro

My guess would be that your comp is overheating yeah.... Maybe try to clean your comp's ventilator thing, might be that dust is preventing it from working properly.

~50 degrees Celsius on the processor and the GPU are fine, if that's what it's at when it's restarting. Though, er, I'm confused with what you're saying here:

i was recieving was 50 degrees although 20min after it restarted.

If you're saying it was 50 degrees 20 minutes after it restarted, that isn't too helpful, as it'll cool down in 20 minutes. Both of the programs have logging options that will create a file with the time and temperature so you can see what it was when it restarted. 70-80 degrees is where it will probably restart if it's overheating.

If you opened it up and it was pretty dusty inside, like jerom said, you ought to try vacuuming out all the dust. I'm guessing though that you need not turn down your graphics, really, as your card ought to be able to handle it.

ok yes sorry for the confusion i think i was typing that on my phone and it annoying autocorrected. I have since had it restart 3 times. 1 at 52 2 times at 53 degrees. Overheating shouldn't be the problem as it has got to hotter than that while playing i also checked for dust. there is not a drop in there..

Since then ive google a few things. 1st of all i updated my graphic card driver as well as my audio card. Not sure what else i should update?

 Next i disabled the option on the computer to restart system failure occurs. However this did nothing and the computer still restarted. This makes me think could it possibly be age of empires itself causing the restart rather than a hardware problem.

Went through the action center to see what happened at time of restart. All i get is a critical power kernal which just says that the computer unexpectably turned off but nothing else..

Thoughts?

I would say your problem is beyond the scope of the technical expertise of this forum.

I would try posting in the gaming section at Tech Support Forum: http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f141/

thanks, for anyone interested the post can be found here
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f59/computer-restarts-when-playing-aoe3-666090.html#post3881544

however i will continue to watch this post and contribute to the forum. Thanks for your help

Does it give a bluescreen before it reboots ? That's some common windows error thing..

Also does it restart at specific times ? I had something like that on my old comp... It'd restart when I'd accept a surrender of an AI... really weird. So like when I was playing comp stomp with a friend and an AI would surrender and I'd click on yes it'd crash... so I always had to wait for my ally to click the yes button. Maybe if something similair is happening to you you can give reinstalling a shot. 

Hi thanks for your reply. No it doesnt give bluescreen before hand. Just turns off like someone pulled the cord out and then restarts. The time of restarts is random. No specific time it happens. I could be playing for 3 hours and it happens or 20minutes.. completely random. It happens on Both AOE3 and AOE3 Asian Dynasties. Havent played the other expansion so cannot comment on that.

Although interesting thing i found.my compaq power supply is only 250W while Nvidia suggests 400W power supply. I reckon this might be the problem.

Putting a higher power GPU into a pre-built computer can definitely cause issues.  As your video card is stressed more, it will draw more power - and if your system can't provide enough power it can shut off in the manner described.  In general, it's not an ideal system configuration to have, you don't want to be stressing your power supply like that (overloading it can cause, in some cases, the capacitors on the power supply to literally fry).

Yeah i upgraded the Power supply to a Seasonic 620w system im gonna give it a run tonight and see how it goes.