Game restarts, Help!

My computer periodically resets itself while I'm playing Guild Wars, the strange thing is it can sometimes happen after 5-8 hours (such as today I was playing since 12pm this afternoon and it only reset at around 8:50). Other times it will happen much sooner, it reset itself a second time tonigh roughly 30 minutes after the first. It usually occurs during a mission, but once it occured while I was running from pre-searing ascalon to Ashford no combat or anything.

Recently I installed a second stick of 512mg PC3200 ram, in addition to my first stick of PC3200. After the first reset I assumed something was wrong with the ram, so I switched the ram slots. This didnt work, then I tried defragging my hard drive. This didnt work, then I went as far as reformatting my hard drive I also placed only one stick of ram in my system (thinking my power supply couldnt supply both and all my other components). This gave me the longest play time without reset (about 8 hours) today. But in the end to no avail, the pc resetted itself again. So then I assumed the new stick of ram was faulty, so I placed my original ram into the PC. As I said earlier thirty minutes or so later it resetted itself again. This really annoyed me since prior to Guild Wars and the new ram I've never had the problem of the PC just resetting itself.

So I've come to a few posible conclusions:
1: It's a game issue
2: Both ram sticks are faulty and/or damaged
3: The Motherboard is damaged and/or faulty

I'm at a total loss, I can't figure it out help!

System Specs:
Windows XP pro (SP1)
Asus A7N8X-X mobo (nForce 2)
AMD Athalon XP 2800+
Sapphire Radeon 9600xt 256mg
2x 512mb PC3200 ram
Maxtor 120gig HDD

Direct X and drivers are current.

Please try the easiest test, first: open the case and play with a household fan pointed into it. Lots of people are overheating and don't realize it. Please post back and let us know the results.

I dont believe it's overheating, I've never encountered this problem before. I've played Doom 3, HL 2, Vampire, Swat 4 and a few other new games without any problems what so ever. So it leads me to believe that's its an issue with GW, one that I cant figure out.

Well, Just becuase you havn't noticed it before does not imply that your system is not overheating. It merely means it may not have been bad enough to cause a problem that you could notice. After a certain level of heat damge to your hardware, your system will do fairly crazy things, like turn itself off. It no longer is able to cope with the damage that is occuring or the ammount of heat that is building up.

So to be safe you should atleast try to see if you can monitor the tempratures on the the important stuff like the the cpu and gpu or graphics card. Also the internal case temprature is good to note.

Also something new to think about for everyone as well, Where do you store your system ? Is it on carpet, in a cabinet, or on a shelf, those types of things can affect the air flow volume, which can result in a build up of heat inside of a unit when it is using alot of power at high performance levels.

Also check your bios settings, you may find that there is a cut off temprature set in the health monitor of your system. Many new systems come with temprature sensors that monitor things like the cpu core temprature and board temprature. The ammount of heat being generated may well be exceeding those set values, and while the value that is gernerated by the system might be of a safe level, not damaging, the cut off settings may be to low for your system. At high performance levels.

Lastly, What is the output of your power supply or what should it be ? You might be suprised at the types of things an aging, dying, or underpowered psu can do to a system.

As mind-boggling as it sounds, the Guild Wars engine is more resource-intensive than any of the games you mentioned. Just to be on the safe side, check to make sure that your CPU is not overheating, as most computers tend to have a safety feature that switches off the PC to cool down once it's reached a certain temperature.

It probably isn't a heat issue, even though everyone likes to call every issue that pops up a heat issue. Anet support adamantly asserted that my friend was suffering from a heat issue until finally, after a dozen back and forths playing all their games they finally had him try some other solutions. It ended up being his sound card.

It's not that everyone likes to call it a heat issue, it's that heat is the most common cause.

It's called a process of elimination.

That's right. The test for overheating is also ridiculously easy and tests all components at once, including ones for which no commonly available temperature monitoring exists.

As i have posted somewhere else i have exactly the same problem as the thread starter which has just started after 3 weeks or so. I thought it was over heating as the weather changed but when this morning i found that my computer had reset and it was stone cold i switched on loaded gw and reset itself again. Mine however isn't so much as a reset but more of a it just turns off. Then it wont turn on until you unplug the power cable and replug it in. The only thing i can think is that there are issues with my power supply. But why is it only really happening with this game. It may be more on resources but 3.2 p4 and 1 gig ram with 256mb gfx shold manage easy, + why would it drain the power supply any more than normal? its either powered or not (excuse my lack of correct terminology). But the net result is i have the same problem and no it's not overheating and i have no idea what it is. I just have to keep rebooting and hope it feels like doing and 8 hour session rather than a 25 minute one as it has happened right at the end of missions a couple of times. This is a recent thing and started around the time of the update (my only other possible theory as to why). Ontop of which my computer has the temperature inside dispayed on the front and it's running at around 40-44 C which isn't hugely hot. (that was on one of the hotter days)

Depending on the make/model/configuration of the computer and its components, it may not allow you to start the PC up again until the components have cooled. I once had a crash-test dummy PC which used to get so hot that it would require 24 hours to cool off before it would let me switch it back on.

don't get me wrong it switches back on straight away one i unplug and replug but the issue isn't the heating the computer had been off all night and was cold and loaded up fine the fan didn't sound like a jet or anything it was only when i booted gw up, up came login screen and it just turned off. Tried again unplug replug press on loads up, wait a min or so to see if it's gonna do it again. Seems ok load gw up and exactly the same. It happened yesterday the same turned off 3 times then went for 5 hours +

Google & do some research. This is an ignorant assumption. Nothing wrong with being ignorant, unless you refuse to learn.
Is this your ambient case temp or your CPU temp that you are citing?

Ummmmm ok i don't know the term or even if there is a term for saying something either turns on or doesn't therefore i must be ignorant and CPU.
If you turn a hair dryer on it doesn't suddenly run out of power if you turn it up to max as the power supply remains the same... poor metaphor but it works for me.

As I indicated, your invalid assumption is the problem, not your terminology. We are talking about the voltage-regulating power supply inside your computer, not the supply of current from the utility company. Your hair dryer has a simple electric motor and a heating element, no PSU.

A few things I neglected to mention, I have a 400w power supply. Upon resetting itself windows gives me the message "Your computer has recovered from a serious error." though it only gives me cryptic info as to what that is and "dont send" and "send " buttons for the error report. Also you keep citing that the overheating test is simple and it tests everything at once, wanna enlighten me on that one?

No saying "google it" isn't a valid response, no need to be a prick.

Just out of curiosity. I notice you have a 9600xt. Is that a relatively old card from ATI? Just making sure it's not a Typo before someone Flames me.

If so, what drivers are you running from ATI? If you are running the latest ATI drivers, try and get back to a stage where by you are running the earliest drivers that accepted DX9.

The only reason i say this, my Friend has a 9800, there is another thread here with someone with a 9800se and you have a 9600xt. Seems to be some similarity's here.

Maybe try the drivers you first got with your card and see if that works, then try and increase the levels of drivers and play with them for a time. See if this helps at all.

It could well be a Heat issue, but more often than not, I have found it to be drivers whether at home on my own PC's or the work PC's i support in IT.

Either way, just play with the graphics drivers if you haven't done so already. I know it's a pain, but could be worth while in the end.