Random game crashes?

[Guest Frinky]

On one of my older computers, no matter what game I am playing the computer can randomly crash, leaving me with a black screen and no error messages at all. All I can do is press the reset button and start all over again. There is also no particular moment or time period when this happens - the computer could sometimes crash after only 10 minutes of play, or sometimes crash after 10 hours of play. How can I fix this and what could be causing it?

[dw96]

From what I understand, your video card must be overheating. Since you mentioned your computer is old, if it isn't under warranty anymore you can open it up by yourself and clean up all its fans from any dust that is preventing them from functioning correctly. If you are afraid to do this by yourself, though, you should bring it to a computer store for a professional clean, which can cost you anywhere from 7 to 25 dollars, depending on how you want your computer cleaned.You should also check your operating system for any faults and try a system repair or system recovery if cleaning doesn't do the thing.

[jshepp]

On one of my older computers, no matter what game I am playing the computer can randomly crash, leaving me with a black screen and no error messages at all. All I can do is press the reset button and start all over again. There is also no particular moment or time period when this happens - the computer could sometimes crash after only 10 minutes of play, or sometimes crash after 10 hours of play. How can I fix this and what could be causing it?

 

What computer do you have?

[Bogdan]

This actually happened to me a while ago, but it was after switching video cards with a new, more powerful one. The cause was the power supply (it was a crappy one). After switching to a better one, the problems stopped.