this problem has been plaguing me for a week or two. whenever i play a game i.e. warcraft 3 etc, my pc shuts down. my game closes and a proper shutdown occurs i.e. closing all programs. however when i play counter strike 1.6 online, or if i'm using the pc for any other task other than games, it does not shut down. another problem i encounter is that after it does shut down, and i power it back up, the hdd drives blink and the fan goes on but the monitor is blank (standbY) and the dvd and cd rom drives dont respond. is this some hardware problem? i've run numerous scans for viruses and adaware but they're all clean

Your problems may be caused by a defective or failing power supply.
See response 4 in this: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...

make sure all your hardware is seated in the slots firmly, i had a simila problem with mu computer kept shutting down, i had accidently nudged my firwire card out a bit during some maintenence. Make sure its all snug in the slots!