[thenewguy001]

i'm having lots of headaches with my system automatically restarting when i'm in the middle of gaming . it always seems to happen when i'm gaming, which leads me to think it has something to do with the graphics card/driver. here is my system specs:

asus p4p800-e mobo
p4 3.2E cpu
1024gb ddr400 kingston ram
sapphire ati x800pro (cat 5.8)
creative sound blaster audigy 2 (newest drivers)
winxp pro sp2

the first time it happened was when when i was using new macros software with my new saitek gamepad. when i hold down too many keyboard or gamepad buttons down, the system autmatically resets. i was using the gamepad with some n64 and playstation emulators. this made me suspect it was just faulty macros software, and i dismissed it, even though i had to be real careful not to depress too many keys/buttons or else it will reset. the emulators all ran in d3d mode

the second game/engine this occured on was halflife2. whenever i quit half-life2, the system resets. this had me more worried, since i was previously played it when it came out, it ran perfectly. i still wasn't able to pinpoint the problem. counter-strike ran and quit with no problems in full-screen mode, but gave me reset problems in windowed mode. if i alt-tabbed, sometimes it will reset. if i suceed in alt-tabbing and use end-task in taskmanager, the system does not reset

the third game that this now effected is mount&blade. it's a small game still in beta that is quite a good deal that i finally decided to buy. sometimes when i'm in battle, the game all of a sudden crashes, i hear a loud crackle out of the speakers, and the system resets. i can no longer ignore it as it is highly annoying because i can't save in the middle of a battle, and some battles occur in stages that last quite a while (more than 20-30 minutes). this game also runs in d3d.

i could really use some help in figuring out just exactly is wrong with my devices. whenever i submit an error report to microsoft, a page comes out saying that analyzing the error report i sent didnt' yeild anything specific, other than the fact that they think a device driver caused the error, and that i should upgrade my drivers. if anyone has any idea, or have had similar problems, please tell me how to fix this.

here are some culprits that i think are responsible:

1. cpu/gpu overheating. my cpu runs REALLY hot sometimes... at idle it runs ~50 and maximum goes up to 72C. intel's website says that 72 is the max... and i get alert pop-ups when i sometimes goes up to 73. gpu, well i've had ati tool say it goes up to 65C. i've tried running with the case open and a open fan blowing across the boards and the temperatures don't seem to drop...

2. catalyst. i don't know, i think it may be a problem with my card and d3d. maybe if i revert back to old cats it'll solve the problem? sometimes the new cats break games that used to work, like kotor and kotor2. does anyone know whether this problem will go away if i revert to a certain cat version?

3. keyboard. this one is, well, a bit weird. if i hold w, a, and d keys down on my keyboard (or some other combos of 3 or more buttons on my keyboard) i get a load system beep. this isn't a windows beep, but a hardware beep from the mobo. i'm not sure if it's a problem, but sometimes the reset happens just as i get the hardware beep. does anyone know how to A) disable the hardware beep and B) whether this is the cause of my problems? the keyboard?

i've tried turning off auto-restart under system settings, but then all i get is a blue screen, with no error message

this is a long and ugly problem . if you have read this far then you already have my gratitutde.

[e v o]

what's your PSU?

[thenewguy001]

i forget the brand of the psu it's a korean brand and i bought it oem and there's no label on the box. it's decent though and never gave me any problems. i have a voltage monitor and it's always given steady readings. i dont' think that's my problem...