Warning: Long post...if u wanna help readon. if not im sorry for boring u...

Hi i was wondering if ANYONE .... let me repeat ... ANYONE ... can help me with a huge problem im facing. im sure many huge problems come through here and this is just another one, but i guess u wouldnt have this forum unless u liked to fix these things lol. ok so onto the problem.

im running a put together pc: gig of ram, 2.6ghz amd athlon processor, 40 gig hard drive, asus motherboard w/ non updated BIOS, recently installed Radeon 9600 xt (before when the problem started it was an OEM radeon 9000 pro), a TV Wonder VE by ATI, and a sound blater audigy gamers card.

the problem: recently (about a the beginning of jan.) my computer just shuts off. the only similarity between any of the times that it shut off (save just tonight when reinstalling windows) was that i was running a game and loading a map and at the very beginning of loading a map the whole pc turns off. everything powers down. i even have to turn the power off on the pc and wait a minute or two before i can turn it back on. AND as long as im not doing anything game related, im fine.

NOW: ive just formatted the harddrive thinking it was driver conflicts or something involving the graphics card but, alas, it turned off as i was reinstalling windows.... I NEED HELP

I NEED LOTS OF HELP... thanks for anyone who even READS all this

Asus added a new function since A7V133 BIOS version 1005. This function allows the BIOS to check the fan speed during the POST. If the CPU fan speed cannot be detected or is lower than 2000rpm, the system will be shut down with a long beep automatically to avoid CPU from overheating. So please check whether the CPU fan is well connected with the CPU_FAN pin on the motherboard and works properly. If you wish to disable this function, please enter the "Power" menu in BIOS setup and set "Fan check beeping" to [Disable].

please check this on you system. also what model number is your motherboard?

my motherboard is an A7V8X-X

should i update my bios or is it as easy as changing that option in the bios and thats that

Well i personally think that this is a RAM problem. If you are running hardware intensive programs that they need a lot of ram. I know that you have a gig which is more than plenty but i think it might be some faulty ram or something. I am only a 15 year old tech but do know quite a bit so take it or leave it. Not to say anything agaisnt anyone but i dont think that it is a motherboard problem. You could also be drawing too much power when your hardware starts running in its extreme highs (durring gamming.) Just thought i would throw that in. Good luck.

well i doubt ram is the problem simply because if it was faulty or if anything having to do with memory was bad it wouldnt shut down the whole system, i would either end up with an error message, the whole system freezing or something along those lines. power might be something to look into though, but im not running anything overclocked or anything that drawls too much power as it is. standard cpu fan and powersupply fan as well as two other fans but the problems started before the fans were in (at first i thought it was overheating).

please reread my post above. it talks about "If the CPU fan speed cannot be detected or is lower than 2000rpm, the system will be shut down..."
it looks like your system came with either, A7V8X-X BIOS 1008 ,1007,1006, 1005 or 1004 (if you had 1004 i don't think you would be having this problem). check to see what BIOS version you have. if you have 1005 - 1008 this means that the post above applies to your system. So please check whether the CPU fan is well connected with the CPU_FAN pin on the motherboard and works properly. If you wish to disable this function, please enter the "Power" menu in BIOS setup and set "Fan check beeping" to [Disable].
no flashing the bios won't fix it. you would have to flach backwards and that would not be good.
let me know what you find out.

it says my BIOS is Revision 1003

wow i was sure it would be one of the others. have you looked into the BIOS and see if you have the power setting for the fans? if so try turning it off and see how the system works.
back to more research....

well when u first posted and told me about the settings i didnt even look at my version of bios i just went into the power settings. it doesnt offer an option to warn me about cpu fan speed but i did notice one thing. i had the option to ignore monitoring of the fan speed entirely and i know thats not recommended but im positive the fan is attached properly, maybe a little dusty but it cant be too much i clean it once in a while. i also noticed that when i had the option set for it to monitor the fan speed, the speed was all over the place. im not saying just like a few rpms off or anything i mean like hundreds of rpms.

i think you are having heat trouble and may need to change to bigger heat sink and or fan. when the system is running do you know what the CPU temp is? remember if CPU temp gets to high it can cause problems for the MB. is the case vented good?
just random thoughts of things to look at.

well im kind of a nerd ... i have an exterior temp gauge that tells me the temp of the motherboard and it never exceeds even 70 degrees because i have two fans on my power supply, a fan mounted at the back of the case, a fan mounted on the cpu, and a fan mounted on the graphics card. do u think switching the fan on the cpu or adding another might help. i havent really looked at the cpu temp but im sure i could rig up a temp gauge for that right quick.

it couldn't hurt.

my cpu temp sits in between 56 and 57 after leaving it on for two days and my fan speed now sits in between 4041 and 4066 rpms... i think its stable now but the only way i can check is to run a hardcore game (Call of Duty online with the highest settings)... think i should give it a try?

yes try it out that's see what happens.