I installed the game, I run it and get to a picture of a dragon with 'level 1' and tips about dual weilding, the screen goes black and my PC turns itself off. I've tried 6 or 7 times and the same thing happens each time.

I'm already pissed off about being forced to use steam after I have had problems every time I try to use the damned thing. I have NEVER been able to play ANYTHING on steam and if my kids had not bought me this game for my birthday I would have said 'Bye bye Bethesda and bye bye Elder Scrolls', despite having played every Elder Scrolls since number 1 was released. I really draw the line at having to have an internet connection and use a crappy thing that never works for me in order to install a desktop single player game. For goodness sake Bethesda, what are you thinking???

Intel core 2 Quad cpu q6600 2.40 ghz 2.40 ghz

4 gb ram

32 bit OS

Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti

Steam can not turn your PC off, and neither can any other ordinary application. Doing that would require direct access to the hardware, which userspace applications don't have in any sane OS. Best they could do is to ask the OS to shut down, and that would let you see the usual Windows shutdown screen first.

But if your computer always turns off at that point, something about it could be stressing the system in a way that causes the power supply unit to fail. What model of PSU do you have, and what's its rated max output (in watts) and max current (in amps) on the 12V rail(s)?

You know, when you try to do something with a computer and the computer powers itself off trying to do it that tends to point at the hardware/drivers for a component not doing what they're supposed to. If steam itself was responsible it'd have killed your system before you even tried to load the game. Seeing as the power down occured right when the game was trying to load its engine and show it to you I'm thinking you should be focusing on your video card and everything that ties into its ability to do its job (PSU dying? Drivers? Exceptionally over-reaching game settings?) and not steam.

As much as I despise Steam, it's not Steam turning off your rig. As the above poster stated, the odds are approximately 3,720:1 there's something off with your hardware like insufficient voltage or overheating of a component.

Ah right, thanks guys. I'm still not happy about having Steam forced on me though.

I found some info about my PSU

FSP group Fortron/source
DC output 350Watt

but can;t see anything about max current

350w PSU trying to drive a 560TI? I think I found your problem. To elaborate on that yah that card and a quadcore will eat much more power then that PSU can produce and the computer shutting down when the card tries to switch to full power to display a 3d engine is a classic indicator this is what's going on. Bigger PSU is needed, this is indeed your root cause.

Yeah you should have a 500W psu to power that gpu. I would look at getting a 600Watt just to be safe.

This is a good deal: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028

Antec and Coolermaster are two other decent brands. Try to avoid generic brands, as a poor quality power supply can potentially fry your motherboard.

That 350 W PSU's just not enough, no matter what its 12V max current is.

You're lucky it had a working limiter to shut it down when it was clearly being used out of spec. Some really crap quality ones don't have even that and instead burn when they are stressed too much. Sometimes they burn the rest of the system, too.

Go get a Corsair TX650 or some other decent output PSU from a good brand, should last you a build or two.

I see, that explains why it hasn;t done it before. The graphics card is relatively new and I haven't tried to run anything that needs so much power. I'll get that sorted out - thanks to all for the advice!

Snargelfargen, that does seem to be a great deal but I am in the UK, I read some reviews and decided to follow advice on here, I ordered the Corsair TX650w. Thanks again to all who replied

"Steam Client Service" does run as Local System, so it could bring your PC down like that in the right (wrong) circumstances. Still, that pretty clearly isn't the problem here.

OMG, get that upgraded asap

What was needed was the total of 12V, but a 350 would only have one 12 V leg, not two. Fortron is a good brand. One of their 350s is easily as good as a 700 from Chieftec or Raidmax. The quality brand was the explanation for the gentle shut-down instead of a sparks flying and smoke-filled meltdown.

I got a Corsair 750w and I thought that was absolute minimum I should have to be honest, I was worried about it at first but things seem to be working okay for a year now

350w is very, very low for a gaming rig. ( I didn't even know you could buy that low for example).

You can go waaaay lower than that! http://www.europc.co.uk/power-supply-50w.html?utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=CSE&utm_campaign=europcfeeds

The era of the server-size tower and noisy fans is beginning to close, and AMD's Llano series is foreshadowing the coming changes. PCs are getting less massive, most of the components are being downsized, and there are currently many HTPC enthusiasts building entertainment systems around PCs disguised as stereo components, not towers, with passively cooled GPUs and PSUs. Those will happily run with 300 watt power supplies. For the most part, the Low End and Mainstream Gaming GPU cards will eventually fade away, leaving only the High End enthusiast parts, but at even more costly price points than today.

Many game players will stop upgrading their old "big" PCs and choose to be satisfied with the Medium Level image quality and speeds offered by the combined processor cores and graphics cores in one chip that AMD calls an "APU", and that Intel hasn't made a really competitive version of up to now.

Some will convert to the equivalent of gaming on a Tablet (which is where nVIDIA will be), and there's going to be a battle there between X64, ARM, (and what the heck is inside of an iPad?) ~ ~ I'm having a memory slippage ~ ~ not enough coffee yet!

P. S. Several hours later, I'm remembering that Apple builds a licensed copy of an ARM processor themselves.

I didn't know it was so important to be honest, I thought a power pack was just a transformer to change my 240v supply to 12 volts or whatever. I have learned something from posting here and appreciate that VERY much.

My PC is a couple of years old and was pretty good at first but I've changed a few things in it (like the graphics card) but never thought about the power pack, so now I think I will see a serious difference in performance once the new one arrives. Maybe it has something to do with only having 3/4 ram showing up too

You mentioned you've got a 32bit OS. That's why you don't see all your ram. 2^32 = ~4.3 billion or 4GB. This number is important because that's as much memory as a 32bit OS is capable of dealing with, so if your card has 1GB...you can now only see about 3GB of your system memory (its last on the chain of priority for mapping). Meanwhile a 64bit OS can theoretically see up to 2^64, a number that's quite vast and fully capable of seeing all your system memory at once. This is why most of us have migrated away from the 32bit OSes and why we're very anxious to see everyone else do so, then programs don't have to support that ancient architecture and we don't have to whine for things like LAA in games as much, for instance.

Aaah, now I see! Once more I will follow your advice and change to 64

Glad to help

Sounds like an issue with your power supply. Upgrade your power supply! Your video card needs a lot more power than you're giving it. Get at least a 650W. Also, Steam can't do anything of the sort of what you're suggesting. This issue is also common when people overclock and don't have enough power going to their hardware. Windows will often load and run fine, but as soon as you start running any hardware intensive game, your computer will blue screen and restart.