HELP ME WITH THIS ERROR MESSAGE PLEASE!

[jkimball]

Peterisyum said:
ok i cracked open the case. power supply and this is what i found
+3.3V @22A
+5V@25A
+12V1@18A
+12V2@18A
-12V@0.5A
+5VSB@2.5A

Well, it has two 12v rails, but definetly not a 500W PSU. Your numbers are close to my Antec380. Nividia claims a 150W draw for the GTS250 and requires a minimum 450W supply (specifications tab here :http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gts_250_us.html).  However, your 12V rails do provide 18A, and that is *just* enough to supply the 150W needed.  I assume the video card has a separate power connector? Ie it's plugged into the motherboard of course, but also has a power cable attached to it? How many HDD's and Optical drives do you have? (they also require 12Vpower).

The over heating is definetly a possibilty, either CPU or GPU. That usually takes a few minutes though -you play for 3-10 minutes then boom, reboots, and the BSOD blames a low level sywtem driver, like a motherobaord driver.  If it's a power thing, it will crash when the screen is really busy and blame the video card driver.

So we are back to the 'whose to blame?'.  Follow these instructions to turn off theauto reboot, so we can see whose faul the crash is: http://www.tunexp.com/tips/maintain_your_computer/disabling_blue_screen_of_death_auto-reboot/

If the error message has anything to do with Nvidia, you are going to need a beefier power supply. A good PSU will outlast several systems, so it is a good investment.