All of them would be worth updating, though I can’t say if it’ll help with the restarts or not. Might as well update them.
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I’ll do so and hope for the best. Thanks again. 
I tried contacting Dell for help, and it went about as well as you’d expect.
https://i.imgur.com/Otonr6n.png?1
Instead of giving me any solutions they just tried to sell me a new computer, which I cannot currently afford as I’m unemployed.
I’m feeling really down about this whole thing. I feel betrayed by those on the gaming and hardware forum, who suggested I buy this thing to help upgrade for Shadowlands only to abandon me when I needed it the most. I honestly don’t know what else to do to fix this and I’m scared that at this point, my only option is to just try and play WoW with the Sword of Damocles constantly hanging over my head.
Well, let’s be fair. That’s a machine you bought secondhand, that is about 7 years old. Dell isn’t going to support you. They have no relationship with you.
While I’m sorry that you feel led down the garden path, I’m not sure why you bought the machine, or that you didn’t check to see that it was several generations old at the time of your purchase.
This is probably something that can only be solved by a hands on tech at this point, and you may just need to chalk it up to being a learning experience.
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I bought the machine years ago, during MoP, when it was still a good one. It was directly from my sister, where I could see how well it played WoW at the time. She sold it to me when she moved, as she didn’t have room for it, and it was at a reasonable price when I still had a job.
All I wanted was to not lag like crazy in a zone like Ardenweald when Shadowlands comes out.
I just want to cry now.
Ok, so with that additional information, you bought it 3 xpacs ago, hoping it would still be functional in a 4th xpac.
I get that you’re disappointed, but there is a reality to electronics, and they don’t always age well. With a system this age, you may well be throwing money away to try to keep it running at today’s performance levels.
All that being said, it does sort of sound like you got a bad video card fresh out of the box. Check on your warranty options.
That’s the scary part, I was an idiot and threw the box away. Also was a bigger idiot and threw away the older video card, the hardest working video card in the world for years.
I’m seriously screwed.
The box may not matter for the manufacturer warranty. Check on their website.
Is there a way to truly tell if my video card is bad though, and the problem isn’t just caused by something else I have yet to lock down? I’d hate to go through all that anguish for nothing.
If you have a friend who could test it in their machine would be the fastest way. Otherwise, a local computer shop, but that has cost involved as well.
You could run it through one of the benchmarking/rendering tests, and if it failed there, that would be a pretty good indication.
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Alrighty, thank you. I’m curious about the second option though. Is there a testing program built in or something I have to DL?
Thanks for everything so far. I will give that a try later.
Downloaded the program and ran it through a benchmark test. This was the result.
https://i.imgur.com/Mnh9FoI.png?1
Does that give any relevent information on my dilemma?
I should also mention that the rate at which my computer decides to restart is inconsistent. The last two days it didn’t restart at all. Then yesterday it decided to restart twice. I’m afraid to play any other game than WoW because WoW doesn’t punish so harshly for that sort of thing. I’d love to be able to play other games with confidence so if you guys have any sort of solution I would seriously appreciate it.
This sucks. This seriously, seriously sucks.
Please don’t forsake me guys.
Don’t just run the benchmark once. You need to leave it running for 30 minutes plus to stimulate game time. Does it crash then, or throw any errors?
I’ll give that a try. The whole thing is inconsistent. Yesterday I ran all day with out a restart, then it restarted today.
Update: I ran the program for about an hour while I was away to the store. Took a screenshot of how it looked when I got back.
https://i.imgur.com/rY53zQF.png
I’ve been playing P99 EverQuest over the last couple of days to test things out there (seeing if it’s just WoW that’s restarting me) and after a couple days of non-stop playing it finally restarted on me earlier while I was AFK. Not sure what it is, but I’m reluctant to say it’s the video card until all other possibilities are exhausted. Any other options to try would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: Blerg, just restarted on me again right now, lol. So make that two days without a restart, and then two restarts in one day today.
Did you check the Windows Reliability History to see if any errors occur around the the time you rebooted? What about Windows Event Viewer?
Windows Reliability History I’ve honestly never heard of before. Windows Event Viewer I’ve learned about not too long ago though, and the message was always the same each restart.
“The previous system shutdown at ‘time’ on ’date’ was unexpected.”