All my games keep crashing

Hello, I am not tech savvy AT ALL.

So I bought skyrim recently and it kept crashing. I assumed it was just the new game, but my Skyrim STILL crashes, and I've recently discovered that now ALL my games do, and all of them in the same way. I'll be playing, then the screen goes black for 2-3 seconds, (sometimes the game recovers, sometimes not) and then it just takes me straight to desktop. I get a popup saying something has stopped working and has recovered, and I'm trying to find the exact message for you guys so that you can help me, but now that I actually WANT a game to crash, none of them seem to cooperate -_-


Here are my specs

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor 3.40GHz

RAM: 4 Gigabytes

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275

Does this happen more during the most graphic intense gaming, or does it seem unrelated to the intensity (and length of time) of the play?

Do you have adequate cooling? It might be worth downloading coretemp and using your nvidia software to monitor temps in both CPU and GPU.

Also - what kind of power supply is running this rig?

Core temp.and Msi afterburner to.monitor temps and get back to us on what you see.

Core temp and MSi Afterburner are confusing.

Core temp says at the bottom,
Temperature Readings:
Tj.Max: 79*C
CPU#0: 47*C Min 45*C Max 52*C

(Do you need more information?)


MSi Afterburner says on the side,

GPU temperature, *C
-------------------------------------------44

Fan speed, %
Min:30 Max:30
-------------------------------------------30

Core clock, MHz
Min: 301 Max: 301
-------------------------------------------301

Shader clock, MHz
Min:602 Max:602
-------------------------------------------602

Memory clock, MHz
Min: 100 Max: 100
-------------------------------------------100

Ok I left the programs running while playing skyrim in windowed mode, and set it to ultra graphics...

My GPU's max temperature says 71*C
CPU's max temp says 59*C

thank you for all the help so far.



Also, the areas where the GPU seemed to run 68-70*C were outside in open areas like I said... But it pretty much always stayed above 65*C

The CPU seemed to randomly increase and decrease temperature... No patterns that I noticed


So what does any of this tell me?

70 are just fine. ideally 50? for a cpu thats a good max, but gpus especially reference models when being used are around 70c. It isnt your temps.
Your psu sounds suspect to me .

Idle speed Thats typical. Full load 50c and 70c are normal.
If your gpu runs at 40c under load then you must have the best cooler ever made