The Fix

A new PSU will make Oblivion run properly without freezing, right? Thats my problem. I know the 8600GT will work with it, and the game has worked before when I had cards that didnt require a bit more of a kick from the PSU. I just need to ask this before I order a new Power Supply. See, for anyone who doesnt know, my PSU isnt up to par with the recommended specs for my video card needs. I know Oblivion puts a strain on the GPU, and I have heard of other people getting things like this fixed because of the extra juice from a new PSU. But I need to know if this will fix my situation, or if its something else, just need a couple quick responses before I order, if anyone knows anything about this ;)Myrkan

whats the wattage of youre PSU?

I have a 300w (recommended 350w for card) and its quite old. And I just tested Oblivion again to see how it freezed exactly. Well it froze. But after that I had to restart my computer by pushing the button down and such, and once I did, I had to do the same thing I had to do when it last froze: Unplug my PSU and wait about an hour then plug it back in and then boot up. So now my computer is up and running, but Oblivion still doesnt work of course. I really dont know why its not working. I doubt its a broken card, its been working fine up until Oblivion, but then again, I havent been playing games that require a big power workhorse. So I'm confused. Really confused. And I want to fix this, if I have to buy something, then fine, but I wouldnt understand why an 8600GT wouldnt work with this game. Should I uninstall and do a disk cleanup and defrag then reinstall and see if that does anything?

Hrm - well, I'm never one to rule out a possibility for system instability until I've tested a little more than I can manage from here... but even with a faulty install, after your computer is restarted, it should not need any time to sit before it can be powered back on. Even a catastrophically bad install that (for examples sake) deleted every file on your hard drive instead of installing anything would still allow you to get to your POST and BIOS - no power for an hour (haha I rhymed...) would almost absolutely without a doubt be the power supply.

With one warning - while true that lack of power to your graphics card can/will cause a restart, you may be dealing with an overheating problem, which will freeze you up good, and often require a cooling off period before you can play again (like my wife! HA! I'm on fire! Like my wife. Oh hell, my wife's on fire! Crap!).

I don't have your post up in front of me right now, but I think I remember you saying 300W PS with an 8800... do you have enough cooling on that PS and/or graphics card? Nvidia says 8800's are safe to operate between 70 to 85 centigrade, and have been tested at 145... your milage may vary, as 145 seems like 'holy crap my computer just melted' temperature to me.

So yeah, recap: I'd rule out bad install, go right to a replacing of the power supply (300 (is less than, stupid HTML bull$#it) 350 no matter what else, plus more power = uh, more power?) but if you're looking to exhaust (haha heat joke) your options before spending money of any sort, check the heat levels. But my money is on spending money. It always works - eventually.

Good luck!

I always say it's best to have plenty of power available for your system, trying to squeeze through often causes problems. It will make quite a difference to performance if you have a lot of drives and PCI cards if you don't have plenty of power. I believe the recommended 300W is basd on a system that has one hard drive and one DVD drive, but I'm not certain. So if you have more it will be starving your system a little.

I don't understand the need for waiting for an hour after it crashes though? It might be possible that it is overheating, one way of testing this is to open the side of the case up and having a desk fan blow into the case. If it works fine like this then you can safely say that heat is the main issue. If it behaves exactly the same I'd say it points more towards power issues.

Have fun.

Hm, so do you guys think I should just test the game out with a new PSU? I dont really have many options.

Well I didn't like to suggest touching the components as this can be dangerous but it sounds quite definitive that it isn't heating. It certainly sounds like power then, if the components don't get enough power they can stop working. Graphics cards tend to only draw enough power for the task at hand so when you play a graphics intensive game, like Oblivion, it will draw more power and stalve other components.

If I was you, I'd get a new PSU, at least 500W to be sure that everything can get enough power. You can pick one up for around $80 that should be fine.

Have fun.

You didnt suggest it :) But yeah, I need a new PSU anyway, so I guess it wouldnt hurt to spend the money now and get Oblivion (and other future games) working properly.