Stutter Freeze whilst playing

[RedJosh94]

Hello i have been playing company of heroes on high settings at around 60 fps however every now and again the game does a very small freeze and i hear a strange noise in the computer and the frame rate drops all the way down then goes all the way back to 60 again.
Ten minutes ago, the game did this and crashed completely.
Does anyone know the reason behind this ??
thanks

 

[bjmarler]

Hello i have been playing company of heroes on high settings at around 60 fps however every now and again the game does a very small freeze and i hear a strange noise in the computer and the frame rate drops all the way down then goes all the way back to 60 again.
Ten minutes ago, the game did this and crashed completely.
Does anyone know the reason behind this ??
thanks

My first guess would be the video card. Turn the computer off, open the case, unplug any power cables going to the video card, remove the screw holding the card to the case, reach under the card, toward the front of the case, and press and hold the tab to release the card if your motherboard has such a tab, then gently pull up while rocking front to back the card to remove the video card. Do no touch the gold contacts at the bottom of the card. Take it outside and using a can of compressed air, blow it out to remove any dust bunnies. Check that the fan on the video card is freely moving and not hanging.

If that's not it, it could be the hard drive going bad. If so, get a new drive immediately and clone/mirror your old drive onto the new drive.