Possible Problem

[xerocool83]

Alright so let me give you the back story. About 2 years ago I built a computer while I was still in school
2800 AMD Barton OC'd to 3200
9800 Pro 128mb Gfx
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe mobo
1 gig CORSAIR memory XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, Low Latency 512MB 64MX64 PC-3200LLPT With Platinum
Its been pretty good women to me so far but as of recently if i play one of the newer games ie. BF2, or Civ 4 for too long it will give me a blue screen for about 1/2 second and then reboot. Now its not the Blue screen of death or at least that i know of because it is entirely blank, no numbers or letters. About a day before the blue screen started to happen I would be playing bf2 and all of a sudden a building would disappear and then maybe a wall or something. I actually could see enemies behind obstacles but it made me worry that my problem seems to be a GFX problem. When I am Playing my CPU temp is around 53-54 C and my MB is maybe high 30's which i didnt think was too terrible. Does anyone know what could be causing this problem?

Thanks in Advance,
XeroCool~RoB

 

[endyen]

Check that your gfx card fan is still turning. While you are at it, give you whole system a good cleaning.

 

[theholylancer]

try using driver cleaner 3 and then updating your driver, maybe because newer games use newe drivers they won't work properly on onler drivers, and if this don't help, try to clean the insides of you computer (dust kills, it killed my old cheap 300W PSU....) if that still don;t work (your cpu temp is high, which could be caused by dust) try using a housefan blowing into the computer.

note if you haven't regularely cleaned your pc then try the clean computer method first.... dust trap heat in and overheating older proc without thermal protection means dead cpu....

[edit]
too slow.......

 

[xerocool83]

I should have said this but....I have the newest drivers and I have compressed air which I spray into my system about ever 2 weeks. Any other ideas about the Blue screen?

 

[ChipDeath]

Go into system Properties (right-click My Computer-> Properties), Advanced Tab, and click 'Settings' in the 'Startup and Recovery' box. UN-tick the 'Automatically Restart' Checkbox, and then you will see the 'Classic blue screen'... It's just by default XP will reboot if it falls over. You could then try googling whatever it tells you, but I wouldn't necessarily expect that to help much.

I would say it's either overheating (not likely judging by your compressed air routine I guess), dying RAM, or possibly dying Gfx card. It could even be the mobo. Run Memtest86 to rule the RAM out.

Does this only happen when playing games? Try running stuff to stress everything else bar gfx card. Sisoft Sandra burn-in, Prime95 torture test, Whatever other benchies you can find. You could try leaving 3dmark looping for a few hours to see if that kills it. If it's fine in everything apart from 3dmark then I guess it's probably the gfx card.

 

[vagabond]

Good possibility that your GPU is going out.

 

[xerocool83]

What is memtest86? Im just gonna google it and hopefully find it either. Thanks again for the hlep guys.
EDIT: Do you need to use a boot disc, because I dont have an A: drive....I didnt think i Needed it :

 

[xerocool83]

I also ran the Sisoft thing and it said that my video card bios were out of date.....is that the same thing as a driver or is there something different? I just recently dled a new ATI driver.
XeroCool~RoB

 

[unsmart]

Try atitools [free] and scan artifacts that will show if card is going bad and temp, it does on my x700pro. Bios is firmware, I've never heard of ati releasing or recommending an update, but you can get new bios and atitools at http://www.techpowerup.com/. Some are better than others so check on forums there. It sounds like gpu temp to me. My 9600pro would do weird stuff like that when oc to high. Prime95[ free] is best for system test, let it run all day.

 

[xerocool83]

Also, How often should I reformat my HD?

 

[unsmart]

I used to format every four months or so, now I run a registry cleaner and defrag the drive. Keeps it running ok. I doubt thats your problem, sounds like hardware. overclocked systems can become unstable over time and in some apps, even at speeds your used to running at. I had that happen with hl2 deathmatch, ran all other programs fine even prime stable. I had to roll back fsb to 210 from 212. Agp aperture size{in bios] can cause problems if to high sometimes,may need to set it to 64mg. Prime95 test cpu, ram and atitools test gpu and can find your max stable gfx oc for you. Running 3dmark in a loop is also a good test.
good luck

 

[xerocool83]

Thanks to everyone for their help. I un-oc'd my cpu and the problem seemed to have gone away....unfortunately it makes my computer feel so much slower...that much more on BF2. Now I have to make the decision if playing computer games is worth another 700 to upgrade.

Also, I wanted to do that registery cleaner thing.....is there a particular one I should dl that is much better...and much free'er then the rest
Thanks
XeroCool~RoB