Black Screen of Death while playing games

[seawolf399]

Dear Computer Experts

I get black screen of death with annoying sound from my pc speakers while playing games only. Apart from playing games my pc is working fine and it has no problem at all. The windows 7 is perfect which I installed in May 2011; is in excellent shape, all other programs like videos, online surfing, audios, working on MS office are running well without any issue. So the problem lies with games only that too the new games and not the older ones like Stronghold Crusader Extreme is running well, but newer games like Call of Duty, Sniper Ghost Warrior, Time Shift or Euro Truck 2, I experiencing the black screen of death. The specs of my pc are as under:-

1. Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core E5700 3.00 GHz (Wolfdale 45nm Technology)
2. RAM: 3.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 333MHz (5-5-5-15)
As I read on the internet that windows 7 32-bit system cannot read RAM more than 3.0 GHz so I have installed just 3.0 GHz
3. Video Card: SMB1930N (1360x768@60Hz), 512MB GeForce 210 (nVidia)
4. HDD: 466GB Seagate ST3500413AS ATA Device (SATA) can be rounded as 500 GB
5. OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
The thing to note here is the temperature of my video card is 80 Degree Celsius whereas of other hard ware’s it is between the range of 30 and 40 degrees Celsius, what you might think is that would be the problem area.

Please help thanks

 

[festerovic]

The geforce 210 is an old and weak video card. It was the low end when it came out, now we are 3-4 gens past it. For the cost of a single software title you could get a Radeon 6670 which would allow you to play games without running the graphics card beyond its means 100% of the time.

As for the 80 degree card - GPUs get hot, and your temps are not abnormal. Just make sure the fan and heatsink is cleaned of dust and your case has decent airflow. Time to put that 210 in a HTPC or something less demanding.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Had a similar thing with an 8800GTX a while back - failing GPU. Replaced with a much cheaper but new card and it solved the problem.