This machine is about 3 or 4 years old and this is really the first problem I've had with it.
This is odd set of events so it's hard for to determine what is wrong. I was playing Half Life 2 and it's really the first game I've played on it that could really push the limits. It's older game so I had everything on highest setting.
When a new level went to load about the the time it should of completed loading I got a screen that I was unable to read because it turned off really quick but it may have been the "your computer does not have enough power" screen. The drives that have the games on them are in RAID1 configuration and I'd assume that takes more power which is why I'm mentioning this. It rebooted successfully by itself, nothing other than normal boot. There was nothing in the event log other than "unexpected shutdown" and I wish I had spent more time to see if there was other logs.
After playing for a while again it happened again, this time it would not reboot.
I unplugged everything, pulled the ram, switched the ram, tried one stick, tried reseating cables and removed all the cards etc. Also tried CMOS reset button and manually switching it to the backup BIOS.
At this point the only thing connected to it was the RAM and the CPU. When you turn it on the CPU fan will spin for 10 to 30 seconds. There is little LED panel for codes and it gets to 32(cpu PEI initialization), sometimes it only gets to 15 (pre memory Northbridge CPU initialization started).
It will run for a few more seconds when the CPU fan stops spinning ,sometimes the fan jerks a little like it's trying to spin. Right before it shuts off I can see the little light on the main bios switch to the backup briefly. It will power off and try to boot again with same sequence.
I decided to get a new PSU because if this mobo or CPU is cooked I'm going to need one anyway, the one in it is about 3 or 4 years old and I'm not going to put it into a new computer. The oldone is 500 watts and came with the case made by Ultra. I installed a new Thermaltake 650 watt and it sucessfully booted to the screen that asks you what to do because of the CMOS reset.
I thought the issue was resolved and was playing the same game again yesterday and the same thing happened. I'm back to the original sequence with the code 32 and boot loop.
One thing to note is I read on here one way to corrupt the BIOS is overvoltage of the CPU, in both cases the turbo mode was on auto. After changing the PSU I had it switched to the backup BIOS because I forgot to switch it back. I guess it's possible I corrupted both BIOS chips but what doesn't make sense is if it was corrupted BIOS why would the PSU change have anything to do with it?
My only guess is it's the fan, is that possible? I don't have spare here but I'm going to get one to try it.
