My Computer Shuts Down While Playing?

[Professor Rob]

Simply enough, while playing Diablo II, my computer will occasionally shut off. This can take an hour, this could take twenty minutes, this could take ten minutes.

I'm running Windows XP on and AMD Athlon 2.6 MHz processor, and I have Diablo II installed on my D: drive on a secondary 160 GB HDD that's partitioned into 4 drives.

Any ideas, suggestions, solutions?

[Orphan]

Are you 100% sure it's Diablo that's causing the reset? There's alot of circumstances that would cause a computer to automatically reset (infact, I had a barrel of laughs trying to figure out why one at work was resetting by itself /sarcasm).

If Diablo isn't running, does the computer still reboot?

[Luca Rescigno]

It could be just about anything given the information you've provided. It might be a D2 bug, but there's a good chance it isn't.

- Have you recently made any major changes to your computer?
- Have you recently upgraded any of your software?
- Did it just start having these problems recently or has it been going on for a long time?
- Have you tried reinstalling Diablo 2?
- Have you done any virus/spyware scans recently? Do you even have virus/spyware protection installed?
- Does this problem ever happen when you're not playing Diablo 2?
- Do you play any other games and does this happen when you play those games?
- How old is your computer?

The first thing you want to do is figure out if this is a hardware or a software problem. Maybe your computer is overheating (seems kind of likely based on the erratic nature of the problem). If so, it should have the same problem when playing other demanding games.

If it's a software problem, it'll probably be fixed by reinstalling Diablo 2, and it'll almost certainly be fixed by reinstalling your entire OS. But that's a hassle. Let us know some more information so we can help you.

[Professor Rob]

- Have you recently made any major changes to your computer?

Last year I bought a new video card, in March I bought a 160 GB HDD and a new power supply, and a few months back I added another 256 MB of RAM.

- Have you recently upgraded any of your software?

Just Diablo II.

- Did it just start having these problems recently or has it been going on for a long time?

Just started.

- Have you tried reinstalling Diablo 2?

Yes.

- Have you done any virus/spyware scans recently? Do you even have virus/spyware protection installed?

Plenty. Spybot, Ad-Aware, and AVG all recently updated with the latest detections, scanned for days. Nothing.

- Does this problem ever happen when you're not playing Diablo 2?

No.

- Do you play any other games and does this happen when you play those games?

Yes, I play other games, no, it doesn't happen when I play those games.

- How old is your computer?

Two, maybe three years old now.

In addition to it shutting off, when I quit from Diablo II, my background changes to a checked checkbox, also.

I'd like to say that I appreciate the nature of your questions, they're very "technical support," but I'm not a moron. If my computer was shutting down all the time or I was experiencing a lot of problems everywhere, Diablo II is the last thing I'd blame. I've tested carefully and it's the only problem program, so I have to believe that there's something wrong with it.

[Humphrey]

It's definatly not overheating?

[Lensor]

Reminds me of when my computer started shutting down randomly shortly after I installed a new processor. Turned out I had put the processor heat sink on backwards... :bonk: I am also no moron when it comes to computers, but one stupid thing is enough. :D

On topic, the removed desktop background is a new 1.11 "feature" that noone seems to be able to get a handle on. You can avoid it if you do not shut down Diablo properly, ie do not press the "exit diablo" button. You could, for instance, alt-tab to the desktop and right-klick-close Diablo. :thumbsup:

[Luca Rescigno]

I'd like to say that I appreciate the nature of your questions, they're very "technical support," but I'm not a moron. If my computer was shutting down all the time or I was experiencing a lot of problems everywhere, Diablo II is the last thing I'd blame. I've tested carefully and it's the only problem program, so I have to believe that there's something wrong with it.
Thanks. Sorry for sounding patronizing but I just didn't know how much of this stuff you had already covered, and I had no idea what your level of expertise was. But it sounds like you've done everything I or anyone else would have done given the problems you described.

It sounds like overheating but it could be a bug. My advice is going to be limited because I play the Mac version 99% of the time, but I had kind of similar problems in the past. Mine were related to the really bad OpenGL implementation that is used in the OS X port, so once I switched to software rendering all my problems went away. But that shouldn't have anything to do with the Windows version.

Still, you might try using software rendering on the off chance that it'll fix some problems. Yeah, it won't look as good, but we're not playing a five year old game just for the graphics, right?

[Professor Rob]

There is a possibility that the processor is overheating. I did set the motherboard to shut down automatically when it was in danger of doing so, although it's never shut down before nor does it shut down when playing anything else.

Is there a way to monitor my CPU temperature?

[MoonUnit]

There should be a CPU temp monitor in your BIOS; well I KNOW there is one in Award BIOS dunno about others but it should be a standard feature.

There is prolly a program or something that can monitor it from windows. try googling "CPU TEMP MONITOR" or something see what it comes up with.

[Orphan]

On topic, the removed desktop background is a new 1.11 "feature" that noone seems to be able to get a handle on. You can avoid it if you do not shut down Diablo properly, ie do not press the "exit diablo" button. You could, for instance, alt-tab to the desktop and right-klick-close Diablo. :thumbsup:

Apparently, you can stop the background from being removed if you do not add the background through Internet Explorer (ie, if you do not right-click on an image and choose "set to background", or whatever it is). Instead, add the background manually through desktop properties.

Edit: Professor Rob, another thing you might want to check, if you haven't done so already, is to disable the automatic restart of the computer on system failure, through the Startup & Recovery options, in the advanced section of the System properties.