why_

Right now you're trying to run your monitor off of the CPU's integrated graphics. In order to actually use your graphics card as a graphics adapter you need to connect your monitor to one of the outputs on the gpu or else take out your graphics card and just use the integrated one until you get the cable.

Also just saying 1080p is usually the minimum for PC gaming lol

Ok so a couple things that you need to know: a) Your cpu isn't nearly as influential on your frame rate as your gpu until you start getting really low end and you'll eventually bottleneck your card(essentially limiting the performance of you graphics processor due to the lack of cpu capability) b) 400$ is a really tight budget and at that level I'd suggest running your pc off of the gpu that's integrated into most intel processors that way you'll get acceptable performance at low resolutions and then when you have a bit more money to spend you can slap in a gpu and dramatically increase your performance without redoing your whole system c) the other option is to just save up a little because I'm assuming you watch Linus's videos and one really good point they tend to make is price to performance (If you haven't already watch this video: This applies to basically all of your computer parts not just your gpu and is the reason why I suggested going used

How old is the drive and when you say you can get back into windows after a few reboots can you clarify exactly what you're doing?

No problem its good to see more people joining the community!

Download Intel Power Gadget and try to log one of these events it might be useful to see what the power draw on the cpu is I'm suspecting its either a bad CPU or MOBO because from what you described there's pretty much nothing else it could be.

Alright well just letting you know the kernel power error is a result of the shut down and is not going to help identify the problem all it means is that the computer shutdown or restarted without the proper shutdown process

For the OS just go with what ever vesion of windows you want (not going to explain it in detail but 7 is generally regarded as the best, 8.1 is decent with classic shell, and 10 is some shady spyware stuff but it gets updated frequently if you have question just look through a few threads on choosing your OS) Definitely go with a used GPU you'lll crush any price to performance you'll get with a new card. I'd suggest a 970 there's a few floating around from 100-200$ if thats oustide of your price range look at the NVIDIA 700 series or some of the AMD r9 cards.

solid meme

I lied look at this! http://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-Nvidia-Geforce-GTX-970-Gaming-4G-NO-RESERVE/122393226136?_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D41375%26meid%3D5f97faa7565d410780744052d9cbafb3%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D182483502663

ikr you can't get much better than that for PtP

Yeah I just suggested the 970 so he can feel the true glory of the pc master race

note: does not include peripherals

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KTFHsJ Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KTFHsJ/by_merchant/ CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.69 @ SuperBiiz) Motherboard: Asus PRIME H270-PLUS-CSM ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($108.94 @ Newegg Marketplace) Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($52.88 @ OutletPC) Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($66.99 @ SuperBiiz) Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($31.99 @ SuperBiiz) Total: $510.43 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-03-16 15:01 E So this is a pretty good start especially if you plan to upgrade in the future. My suggestions are to grab a used gpu(just an example you should probably look around more and check benchmarks): http://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-GTX-970-Gaming-4G-nVidia-Geforce-Complete-in-Box-No-Reserve-/182483502663?hash=item2a7cdd4647:g:8l0AAOSwuxFYwdF4 Also the mother board is compatible with over-clockable skews so if you need a processor upgrade your free to expand. Last thing is probably a cheap hard drive as the SSD will hep a lot with read write speeds but grabbing a cheap 1-2 tb hard drive is not a terrible idea just for sheer storage space.

Already on it lol