Railworks America

I'm having a very annoying problems and have no idea what to look for.

I will be running a scenario (different ones) and after some time my computer will shut off. It's like the power cord was pulled out from the computer.

I restart the conputer and it want's to know if I want to start in safe mode because of the shut down. I don't and everything starts up ok.

I rerun the scenario and it goes by the crash point with no problem and may or may know crash again at some other point in the scenario.

The problem is: It only happens when I'm running scenarios. it's like a shut off code is being genarated. (wild guess by me)

I'm on a battery back up system and all the othe things In have on it like my monitor do not show any signs of a power problem so I don't think that is the problem.

here are my computer specs:
HP Pavilion p6313w-b Desktop PC Bundle with AMD Athlon II 215 Dual Core Processor, Windows 7 Home Premium & 21.5" LCD Monitor 64 bit cpu


I feel like there is some setting in the computer that I could set to solve the problem but don't know what it is.

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appricated.

Thanks

Dave

Sounds like your overheating. Do you have away to check your cpu and gpu temperatures? Your video board may have some utilities that will show you temps.

artimrj wrote:Sounds like your overheating. Do you have away to check your cpu and gpu temperatures? Your video board may have some utilities that will show you temps.

Yep... That (overheating) was happening to me, I found using Probe II (I have an ASUS MB). So far I'm improvising with a "domestic" solution: took the lateral door of desktop and put a normal desk fan fanning into the tower to keep temps (CPU, GPU and MB) under control.

You could try System Information for Windows. It has a section that will tell you what your CPU and GPU temperatures are.

Another option is to monitor you graphics card with GPU-Z. You can let it run in the background and you can have it create a report that you can read if the system shuts down and after you boot back up.

I agree with Bob though. It sounds like a heat issue.

Thanks for the quick reply. I hadn't really though about over heating because it only happens with railworks. but it is very likely the problem.

I'll see what I can do this week end about keeping things cooler and see what happens.

Now I at least have something to look for.

Dave

It's probably only happening with RW because it's so GPU and CPU demanding.

You can also try a D&C (dusting and cleaning) of your fans and heat sinks if the computor is older.

I'd be interested to know what the power supply unit is on this PC. You can see the cpu and gpu (which will struggle with TS2012) trying to keep up and maybe the psu can't supply enough power or the right quality of power (ie at least 40A/+12v Rail).
The OP says he can restart the PC/scenario and it runs OK but if it was overheating you would expect to crash earlier, pc's don't cool down rapidly.
The other temperature would be the HDD that can cause artefacts if it gets too hot and what is the free space on the HDD? If less than 10% it may not be able to undertake its routine checks.
It might be worth running Everest Temperaure monitor to check the northbridge and Southbrideg chips if present on that Athlon cpu.
Are the fans working on the cpu/gpu some drivers did slow down the gpu fand I recall.
But as one poster said a good dust and clean may solve the problem.
PeterH

Both heat and a marginal power supply can cause this problem. I would tackle the possible over-heating first.

Any program that uses all cores to close to 100% will usually result in an over-heating condition if your computer is dirty or the cooling is not sufficient. It's easy to get "hot spots" where the fan cooling is blocked by cables or poor design. You can try other programs like prime95 to "stress" your system. But have a look at your computer, the vents and heat syncs to see if they are packed with dust. Stressing your system could cause it to fail permanently if your motherboard doesn't shut down quickly enough. But most modern hardware does shut down before permanent damage occurs (like your shutdown problem you are seeing know.)

It doesn't take long for dust to accumulate and it really doesn't take long for a modern CPU temp to go from cool to high -- a matter of a few seconds. I've seen my system cpu temp go from 95F to 135F in a matter of less than half a minute when running high cpu intensive programs.

Next, as mentioned, is your power supply. Heat can stress a power supply, so that's why I'd check the over-heating possibility first. But a marginal power supply will cause the problem you see, so you may have to look to a higher capacity supply.

I would use something like Real Temp http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/Real_Temp/ to check what temperature your CPU and GPU are generating before deciding that is an issue. Also, check the 'Event Manager' in you windows OS to see what is listed as the event that switches off the box will be listed in there.

Open Event Viewer by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Event Viewer. Nosey around there after a shut down for the time stamp and see what happened.

I don't think my power supply is the problem. It's 500 watts and at the top of the case. The dust wasn't too bad for 3 years old. but I have cleaned it.

Haven't been able to do any testing today but I am about to start. I have one side of the case off and if that doesn't keep it cool enought I guess It's back to trainz 12 until i can afford a new computer this summer.

Dave

PS Hopefully I won't have a problem tonight. I'll let every one know tomorrow.

Looks like overheating was the problem I ran it for 6 hours last night with no problems with the case open.

Thanks for the help it is really appricated.
Dave

Glad to help and in case you didnt know, the computor shut itself down so it wouldnt burn up ;) Smart technology, I love it. If only it would tell you why it shut down.

artimrj wrote:Glad to help and in case you didnt know, the computor shut itself down so it wouldnt burn up ;) Smart technology, I love it. If only it would tell you why it shut down.

It will, check the event log when any anomaly happens.