My first build turns off and restarts very often. HELP!

[maxcheese3]

    I just recently bought parts for my first build from Neweggg.  I succesfully put the computer together and installed Win7.  I messed around for a few minutes and then went to bed.  Next day I installed C&C3 (a 2007 game) and played it after a few minutes my computer turned off and restarted.  It said Windows crashed or whatever and I hit run normally and it booted back up.
    Played it again and it did the same thing.  I would go into the BIOS immediately after it turned off and the cpu temp was around 50C.  I tried other games and it would do this in them too.  It even sometimes does that just when I'm on desktop doing nothing, but just like one or two times.  I found that if I played my game for 2 minutes and then minimized for 1 minute and played again for 2 and so on,  I could play for like 15 minutes, but it would eventually turn off and restart.  It also sometimes freezes in the game and creates artifacts and goes TEH TEH TEH for a few seconds and doesn't turn off.  That sounds like overheating to me, but I have the case open and have an external fan pointing in there and the case has 2 fans.
    Here are my specs.
cpu= AMD A8 3850 2.9GHz quadcore apu
RAM= 2 Kingston HyperX 4GB 1600mhz KHX1600C9D3/4G
psu= OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W
MoBo= ASRock A75M-HVS FM1
HDD= Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX 750GB 7200 RPM 64MB
optical= Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner
case= Rosewill DESTROYER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower

    Yes, my copy of windows 7 is legit.  No, its not a virus (I don't even have the internet hooked up to it).  Incase you didn't know the gfx card is integrated on the cpu.  They call it the 6550D.  The cpu is 100w.  I don't think all my hardware would use over 500w.  The psu is good quality, it cost $65.  I would really appreciate all the help you can give, cause I am 15 and just spent all my detasaling money on this beast.  Thanks.

[patio]

Bad onboard vid chip...return the board.

[maxcheese3]

Bad onboard vid chip...return the board.

The video chip is in the cpu.

[Transfusion]

APUs... I'll have to get my hands on one soon.
I have no experience with APUs, but I'll try.
TEH TEH TEH for a few seconds sounds like a graphics driver error-when overclocking after I have exceeded the limit it usually delivers a video lag, then creates artifacts and BSODs.
Although you are not overclocking...

[Computer_Commando]

APUs... I'll have to get my hands on one soon.
I have no experience with APUs, but I'll try.......

That's a term I hadn't heard yet:  APU is an accelerated processing unit. APUs are the next generation of processors (from what are known as CPUs and GPUs).
BTW, they are NOT for gaming.  I'm getting a laptop that has one.

[soybean]

APUs... I'll have to get my hands on one soon.
I have no experience with APUs, but I'll try.

I also hadn't heard of it.  I found an article which sheds some light on this: http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-APUs-Will-Cannibalize-Low-End-Graphics-Cards-213144.shtml

[BC_Programmer]

APU= Audio Processing Unit. the NES has one. the SNES has one (in the form of the SPC700). Nearly All game consoles have one. Computers have them in the form of DSP chips, but those aren't usually called APUs.

I guess the term is being overloaded to mean something new. Typical.

[maxcheese3]

It does stand for Accelerated Processing Unit and it works great for budget gaming.  It has 400 flipin cores at 600mhz.  Check out videos of it running Crysis2 on Youtube.  Now if only I could get it to work for more than 5 minutes.  UGH!

[Computer_Commando]

This is the Intel chip in the laptop:  http://ark.intel.com/products/52220/Intel-Core-i3-2310M-Processor-(3M-Cache-2_10-GHz)
I'm not a gamer, so I don't care.  We'll see how it works out, arrives today.

[WillyW]

Just out of curiosity - did you use thermal paste when mounting the heat sink to the cpu?

Perhaps the heat sink came with it pre-applied.


Whatever method that was used for heat transfer, please describe it for the gurus here.   Let's be sure you are ok there.

[maxcheese3]

I am using the stock heatsink.  The thermal paste was pre applied, although I did not have the heatsink properly latched for like 3 or 4 hours after I put it on.

[Computer_Commando]

Monitor the APU temp while playing the game.  You want to see how hot it's getting under load.

[maxcheese3]

done that too.  I am using the software that came with the mobo and I will check the temp about every minute while playing.  I have never seen it get above 51C.  Though I don't know how accurate that is, cause if I go into the bios it reads the temp as high as 53C, doing nothing. Even when It has been turned off for a day it starts at 30C then gradually gets to low 50's within 5 minutes in the bios, but it stays around 30C at idle when I read from The ASRock software it came with.

[Computer_Commando]

Temps are fine; TDP is 100Watts.  I'd be testing the RAM with memTest.

[unusual]

i had a similar problem and im not sure this will help, but we found that the motherboard was too close to the case and would short itself out during play and on start up we solved it by putting a thin sheet of rubber in between the board and the case