[Ivaan]

ok so recently my computer has just been turning off randomly while i play ffxi, it just started, and ive played for a while before hand and it never did this. the thing is the screen just turns black and then it powers off, wtf is going on ? this is really pissing me off to no end. i checked the fan and its not clogged or anything.

[Kinya]

Are you just running FFXI only? Or do you have some background apps running at the same time? Also how old is your computer? And is it self built? Or factory built?

Could be a number of things. I've had this happen to me a lot of time on separate reasons.

One reason was my desktop was 7 years old and I was running so many programs at the same time it kinda overworked all the components.

Another was over heating; Fan doesn't need to be clogged for it to overheat.

There's also the fact that there could be some malicious software on your desktop. I've had this really odd malware before. Either it turned my PC off; or it was my PC that turned off once it detected the malware to prevent further spread of the current infected area.

So what I did was when it shut off. I unplugged it from the net, booted it back up and ran spyware, Norton, everything I could to get rid of the problem. Shut it down manually, hooked the net back up, and usually it was fixed.

[Ivaan]

my comp is 11 months old

sometimes i have programs running in the back, but it also happens when i don't

:/ i dont see anything weird on my desktop either... maybe new fan is needed?

[Dyire]

I have a feeling its either your power supply failing and/or just a bad problem of overheating due to dust. If you haven't cleaned the inside of the case, you're definitely going to have to open it up and start emptying some canned air in there.
Dust build up on the heatsinks for your graphic cards and processor will still cause overheating, even if the exhaust fan for the case is clean.

[Mirae]

Does it only happen when you run FFXI? My brother had this problem at one stage, where everytime he turned on the computer not long after it would shut down and restart.
With him it was a virus though...

[Omegashuyin]

I've have this happen, it was solved by opening the comp case and sticking a vacuum cleaner to the fan to clean it.

[Kinya]

Yeah I completely forgot about the cleaning issue.

So yeah; a low suction vacuum cleaner or a can of air can fix that problem right up!