Computer Freezing/lockups while playing ANY Game.

[Bunnicula]

So the computer isn't old at all (2, 3 years maybe?) and is a fairly nice one too. The lockups/freezes only happen while playing games. Almost any game, it seems as long as it requires a video card it crashes. Most of the time I can play for about a minute maybe two before it freezes. The screen image is frozen and the audio is stuck on loop for the two seconds of audio where it froze. It doesn't seem to happen outside of gaming at all.

Specs (at least what i Know)
3.06 GHz processor
1GB ram
Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS
2 Hard drives
--first is 80GB and has 25 left Second is 130GB and has 50GB left

The first scenario we came up with was a faulty/bad PSU. It has a new PSU very nice and works well. Though the problems eventually came back.

My next thought was that the harddrive space was too low or corrupted something of that nature. Dad gave up and bought a new one and eventually reformatted both. Problems still came back.

SO now the thought is that its a heat problem. But by leaving it off all night in a poorly insulated part of the house and turning on the ceiling fan. ( I got the sucker's CPU temp down to 19 degrees C )still froze. yet the moment i fired up a game it jumped to 38-44 degrees C. So i still sortof think it is a heating problem. Though it seems unlikely.

I downloaded Speedfan and this is what it shows. [attachment]

SO is 59-60 degrees C --Idle-- too hot for GPU?
I'm also thinking the fan speed is too low....Any thoughts?

[Starrz]

Sorry, i cannot help you.

The reason i posted, though, is becaaaauuuuuuuuse.....

NEW GUY!!! WELCOME NEW GUY!!!!
I'm Starrz, and my name is really cool.

[Glabbit]

Baka! Starrz! You're practically a new guy yourself!
Don't start welcoming helpless people into your house when all they wanted was help with their computer!

Now then, Bunnicula, welcome to the forums, but I didn't manage to catch your OS?
Microsoft?
Macintosh?
Linux?

[David]

Almost any game, it seems as long as it requires a video card it crashes.

Hmm, I wonder what your problem could be Well seriously I think that your GPU is probably overheating; I would try swapping it out with a compatible GPU from some other computer and see if that helps.

[Bunnicula]

OS

Wow can't believe I forgot that one. Windows XP (home edition) SP3

I'll have to try replacing the card I think we still have one that was in this computer before the 7600.......Speak of the devil I think I better do it now......GPU temp is 67 degrees C.

Yikes 70!

[Starrz]

Baka! Starrz! You're practically a new guy yourself!
Don't start welcoming helpless people into your house when all they wanted was help with their computer!Linux?

Well, yes, this is true. But can I help it if i want to be a good neighbor?
Terribly Sorry

[Glabbit]

Np, as long as you realize

[Starrz]

Thank you

[Bunnicula]

Well bit of an update.

When taking out the graphics card I completely forgot to uninstall the drivers so when I started it up (after taking it out) it went to a black screen saying file system32\config\system was corrupt. SO I went through the whole repair with boot cd junk to restore it. But now, with the new old graphics card in, drivers installed, it restarts frequently without warning. Sometimes I notice some small weird graphic corruption and other times no.

The only thing I've heard of that sounded similar is when my mother's laptop needed a new hard drive.

Whatever the case it's pretty much out of my hands and in my dads.....should have never touched the thing

[Glabbit]

Eeeeh, that sounds deadly.

Let us all hope for the survival of your machine.
I know what computer's deaths can be like. I've been through a few, and with each one lost much valuable data...

Ahh, electronics...

[Count Roland]

aah I remember that bunnicula series, never exactly read it but I knew a few girls who did.