Computer crashes to black screen, audio stuck in loop, when playing video games, desperately need help

[DyNasT]

Like others that I have seen on Tom's Hardware, my computer seems to turn itself off but the monitor stays on while playing video games. Meanwhile, the audio freezes up and repeats with a RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Some backstory: My family bought an HP pavilion HPE as a family computer from HP's website in 2011. I paid extra to get a Nvidia Gt530 (Skyrim was coming out and I hadn't had any good GPU before) and i7 2600 intel processor. RAM is 8 GB and power supply was mysteriously unknown.
Flash forward to April of 2014. Spring break was coming around and I thought to myself: now would be a great time to try out Hi-Rez's Smite! After playing for a week, I left for a cruise. When I returned, the problems began.
Hitherto, the crashes happened once every few months and very rarely (only for Warframe and Planetside 2 at that point). Then, many more games began to crash. Smite itself crashed often and constantly asked me to update my Intel graphics drivers. Then all my games from Path of Exile to War Thunder began to crash. This computer is a tough one, and it used to run AC Brotherhood, Skyrim, Planetside 2, and Civilization 5 without a hitch. The error report always referenced BlueScreen (although there was no blue screen) and the Event log mentioned some kind of kernel problem and lack of power, describing the problem as if someone pulled the electricity from my machine. After cleaning and examining it, we found the power supply to be 300W and the GPU temperature to climb past 100C for most of my games.

I have reason to believe that Smite was the root of my issue, since that was when the problems began, but asking Hi-Rez on this issue would be like blatantly asking them to pointing out the shortcomings of their product. On all the other computer crashing threads, I have seen a variety of answers, from power supplies to GPU's to fans. I do not know which, if not all of them, is the correct answer, but the case has no more room for fans and newer GPU's are too big to fit in the small space allotted for the 530. Had I knew at the time, I would have built a PC, because the way HP built this is absolute crap.

After months of troubleshooting, the problem still exists. Anybody have any ideas for a fix?

 

[Rexer]

Like others that I have seen on Tom's Hardware, my computer seems to turn itself off but the monitor stays on while playing video games. Meanwhile, the audio freezes up and repeats with a RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Some backstory: My family bought an HP pavilion HPE as a family computer from HP's website in 2011. I paid extra to get a Nvidia Gt530 (Skyrim was coming out and I hadn't had any good GPU before) and i7 2600 intel processor. RAM is 8 GB and power supply was mysteriously unknown.
Flash forward to April of 2014. Spring break was coming around and I thought to myself: now would be a great time to try out Hi-Rez's Smite! After playing for a week, I left for a cruise. When I returned, the problems began.
Hitherto, the crashes happened once every few months and very rarely (only for Warframe and Planetside 2 at that point). Then, many more games began to crash. Smite itself crashed often and constantly asked me to update my Intel graphics drivers. Then all my games from Path of Exile to War Thunder began to crash. This computer is a tough one, and it used to run AC Brotherhood, Skyrim, Planetside 2, and Civilization 5 without a hitch. The error report always referenced BlueScreen (although there was no blue screen) and the Event log mentioned some kind of kernel problem and lack of power, describing the problem as if someone pulled the electricity from my machine. After cleaning and examining it, we found the power supply to be 300W and the GPU temperature to climb past 100C for most of my games.

I have reason to believe that Smite was the root of my issue, since that was when the problems began, but asking Hi-Rez on this issue would be like blatantly asking them to pointing out the shortcomings of their product. On all the other computer crashing threads, I have seen a variety of answers, from power supplies to GPU's to fans. I do not know which, if not all of them, is the correct answer, but the case has no more room for fans and newer GPU's are too big to fit in the small space allotted for the 530. Had I knew at the time, I would have built a PC, because the way HP built this is absolute crap.

After months of troubleshooting, the problem still exists. Anybody have any ideas for a fix?

Heh. One of my computers is a 5 year old Dell. I use it every day. Nothing but the motherboard and cpu are the same. List what goodies are lodging in that case. Like hard drives and how many, psu watts/amps, videocard & vr m (ram), memory (how many gbs.), any other goodies outside of keyboard, usb mouse and monitor. What kind of programs are you running on start up (like anti-virus/spyware programs & how many) which Windows (Vista, 7,8?). Do you have a UPS unit or a surge protector? How's the electricity in your area (do you get power blackouts or fluctuation)? Everyone who checks out your thread needs to see the profile of your computer as well as the problem so they can make and add suggestions or solutions. Makes it easier, bud. Thanks. Oh, do you have a wrist strap handy? You'll need to be grounded if you have to pull out a tooth. Run a Defrag or 'CHECK NOW' and see if it crashes (probably needs it anyway). Never be afraid to ask dumb questions. One time I found the owner's cat keep running by a power cord and jiggled it enough to lose the connection. Mystery blackout, Lol.
So please, do tell.