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[TheFuriousWombat]

i took a long hiatus from playing computer games of any kind but more recently i started up again. a couple of days ago i was playing half life 2 episode one, when all of a sudden, for no apparant reason, my computer shut down. not restared, just turned itself off. it turned back on when i pressed the power switch and everything seemed to be fine. i didn't try and restart the game. today i did however and things seemed to be going smoothly but after playing for several minutes the same thing happened. now i know nothing very little about computer hardware and so i ask, what could be causing this??? and what can i do about it?

[Sarcasmorator]

Is your power switch/cord anywhere near your feet? I've sometimes jostled or unplugged a power cord without realizing it. Or it could be an overheating problem or something wrong with your power supply.

[TheFuriousWombat]

i was worried that it might be the power supply. it's definetly not a cord being jostled. the thing is, it's a fairly new computer and the power supply is somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 watts so it really should be adequate. still, i've been having a sinking feeling that this is the problem. not so sure how to verify this though....

[thepugs]

I had vaguely similar problem and replacing the power supply worked for me.  Could be a few things though.  Firstly, leave your computer on for a while and see if it turns off.  If you have some sort of temperature diagnostic program, use that to check the temperature.  You could download some hardware test programs and use those, see how everything is checking out.  If you're comfortable working with computer hardware, I'd open it up and make sure nothing is shorting or anything.  Power supplies last an awful long time (my last one worked fine for about 5 years in more than one computer), so make sure it isn't something else before you shell out some cash for another one.

[Marauder_Pilot]

I'd call it a temperature issue. Half Life 2 would be riding your computer pretty hard and it's probably overheating.

If you don't want to spend any money, try and make a run with the case side off. If that solves the problem, put it back on and stick a bunch of fans in there. But don't leave it off for any long period, because Bad Things Will Happen to your computer.

[Dimmukane]

it's most likely a hard drive issue.  I had to deal with that for quite a while, until I had somewhere to copy my files.  I had thought that it was a Power Supply issue or a RAM issue, but never a heat issue.  I had checked the temperature numerous times with no oddities.  When I installed the new power supply and RAM and it was still happening, that left the hard drive.  I sent it back to Seagate (thank god for 5 year warranties) and bought a small 80 gb to tide me over.  That fixed it.  It's not a corrupt file or anything, it's the drive itself, so don't go trying to find it and fix it.

I should also add that this should only be done after confirming that it is not a heat issue or power supply issue.

[TheFuriousWombat]

that sounds like it might be it as well.....i have a temp guage on the outside of the case and it never got much above 93 or so, which isn't too hot at all. so this hard drive thing sounds possible......

[Dimmukane]

In that case, do what I did, and try to copy as much of your files as possible to somewhere else, via FTP, thumbdrive, USB Harddrive, etc, then go about replacing it.

[dennis]

Before you go replacing hardware, though, do the easy things first.

See if you can reproduce the sudden power off. I've had the same thing happen to my computer for no apparent reason. It could be anything, really.

Give the inside of your machine a good cleaning. Dust can cause shorts and it insulates heatsinks, decreasing their effectiveness. Make sure everything is seated properly. Make sure all the fans are spinning.

Then make sure all your drivers are up to date. Sound, video, IDE, mainly.

Do a hard disk integrity check. Scandisk or a third party checker if you've got one.

Run a memory checker to test your RAM.

Run a virus check.

[TheFuriousWombat]

well i just finished cleaning out my case pretty well. some dust had built up in places so i took care of that. i also ran some virus checks, and disconnected, dusted off, and then reconnected all my fans. same with my ram. i think, luckily, that doing that may have fixed the problem b/c i restarted hl2:e1 and played for about an hour with no problems. hopefully the issue won't come back....
thanks guys