restarting on its own!

[Polykranopalous]

not too sure if this is a hardware problem or a software problem so ill just post it...

Lately my computer has been restarting on its own. One night I was playing a game (it was hitman 2, if anybody is interested) and than all of a sudden out of the blue it restarts, i thought maybe i hit ctrl alt and delete by accident. So after it restarted I tried to play it again and after like 10 minutes in the game it restarts again on its own, this time I know i didn't hit anything because I was waiting for my objectives. My computer didnt restart on its own for about a week until today... I was just on my computer listening to some songs and all of a sudden it restarted again...does anyone know what is going on??? I was thinking maybe it was either the fan wasnt cooling the cpu down enough and it was restarting cause it was too hot or that maybe my power source is dieing. Im running Win98, power source is 300w and the CPU temp is usually around 41c, System Temp is 30c (this is after playing a game for a long time)

[Colin]

Polykranopalous what brand power supply are you using?

Can you list your complete system spec's, I'd bet it's your PSU... I had a similar problem when I was running AMD as well and it was my PSU.

[Joe]

sounds like a heat problem to me.

did you just recently build this system? .. or did it just all of the sudden start doing this after being used for sometime?

[Polykranopalous]

let me answer PJ's question...I never built this sytem, it just sudden happened...

Ok well I dont have the computer on right now, but I believe it is one of those cheap ones probably. my specs are:

Duron 900mhz
256mb pc133 ram
Radeon 9000 64mb
budget mobo (not sure what kind it is)
10gig hd
and theres one fan (cpu fan?)

I'v had this computer for over a year now and has only lately done this....i was thinking it was the PSU since it is a cheap one I wouldn't expect it to be that great... well ive funinally got some money together and I have decided I am going to upgrade my computer doing some research rite now.

[Joe]

if its over a year old .. then is could possibly be the psu.

[Polykranopalous]

well ok...itll have to do til i upgrade

they can last over a year, i had one (cheap one) for like 2 years, then got a new comp and kept the same psu, and i never replaced it till i got this rig, and it was still going strong
i only got a new one cause that one was only 250watts and i needed somin more powerful

[Polykranopalous]

its ok, i think i fixed it now, it knows if it screws up again it'll get a beating

[Joe]

i have powersupplies that are like 10 years old and still work lol. some go, some don't

[Polykranopalous]

well my computer seems fine now....after I beat it for like 10minutes