Computer Freezes randomly when playing games for over 15mins :(

W

wwfc_barmy

New Member
My computer seems to be freezing when i play games for over 15mins, sometimes it will crash when i've been playing them for 30 mins or a bit more sometimes. The main one that i have playing on at the moment is Sims 2 (nightlife extension) and it will just freeze and i'll have to reset.

It's a reasonably new computer:
AMD Athlon XP2800+ (Barton) Processor
Speeze EEA67B4 VultureSpin AMD CPU Cooler
Gigabyte GA-7VT600P-RZ Socket-A
512mb DDR PC3200 400MHz
350w power supply
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9200 Ultra Fast 256MB DDR

I have the lastest ATI catylist drivers for my graphics card from the ATI website. I'm up to date with XP drivers.

My CPU is running at 51 degrees as i am writing this, i have done a RAM test (memtest) but found no errors.

And basically i really want to get rid of this random freezing...

Any ideas?

Thanks.
 
Hmm

My guess would be these two:

1. Overheating processor
2. More likely an overheating graphics card

JAN :D
 
Thanks for the reply. I've just checked to see how much a cooler would cost for my graphics card and boy they arn't cheap. Around £20 :( Is there way to tell if it is my graphics card overheating?

Thanks.
 
Yes

Well if you happen to see tectures missing in games or come across strange shapes appearing on the screen prior to the freeze, then it is most likely that the graphics card is overheating.

JAN :D
 
Ok. I've now started having problems with applications not starting correctly, they freeze when it starts up, but the CPU usuage is hardly anything, nearly always over 90% on the system idle process.

So what i have tried is getting my deskfan and pointing in inside the case (after taking the side panel off), and everything loads up fine. So i will try to play a game in a bit, see if it solves it, if so do you think it could be my CPU or Graphics Card that is overheating?
I've got 'speed fan' It has 5 temps, 1st is for CPU, second is case, 3rd i'm unsure of and 4th and 5th is the harddrives.
I've got a feeling that The Graphics card temp is the 3rd one. If so it's running about the same temp as the CPU! I'm not sure if thats normal.

so do you think it could be my CPU or Graphics Card that is overheating as it seems to be a temperature problem?

Thanks.
 
i would bet its the cpu temp giving u the problem. u got a lot of dust in the case...dust tends to hold the heat. also, have u checked all the case fans to make sure theyre working?
 
Well should what i think the graphics card temp be near the same as the CPU?

The CPU is running at around 52 normally. I do have some compound which i can put on tomorrow, i just used the pad that came with it but i'll try it.
 
I played The Sims 2 last night without it freezing up when the deskfan was pointing inside my PC.

My case fan is running fine.

I'm still not sure whether its the graphics card overheating or the CPU overheating..
 
why dont u start up speed fan, start the sims, (no fan), and switch back and forth from playing sims and looking at the temps.....see which one is skyrocketing.
 
i have a similar system. ati radeon x700 agp card. 1 512mb stick of crucial ram pc3200. everything is brand new. and my games lock up after 5-15 minutes of play.

i really dont think that its an overheating problem. my gfx card heatsink and cpu heatsink are cool to the touch after the crash. not really sure what else it could be though.
 
Well i replaced my graphics card with a nivida one what has a cooler on it, and i have no problems now, no crashes. I think my CPU temp is still a bit high though, so i'm gonna buy a nice cooler for it.

Hope this helps.

Pete.
 
you said you ran a RAM test. never heard of this before. 1 of my sticks of ram actually died so im a little suspicious about the 1 stick i have left. you think you could hook me up with some info on this?
 
bobdave said:
you said you ran a RAM test. never heard of this before. 1 of my sticks of ram actually died so im a little suspicious about the 1 stick i have left. you think you could hook me up with some info on this?
Click to expand...
Memtest will do the job
 
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