Computer keeps freezing...

[CrazeD]

My computer keeps freezing, and I'm right at the edge of completely ****ing freaking out.

I'll play some mild games for a while, then leave to do something, and try to play again...and it freezes. So I restart my computer, get it started again, go to get back onto Teamspeak, and the sound freezes and starts looping, then the computer restarts again.

Sometimes, the video freezes, goes to a black screen, and then comes back.

WTF!!

My CPU never goes above 30*C at idle, and I have really good air circulation. Would an overheating video card cause this? Or could my RAM be overheating maybe?

I don't have a temp sensor on my videocard, so I have no idea what the temps are.

I need some help

Thanks.

 

[Nukem]

What size PSU do you have? and what video card?

 

[Nitestick]

also what games are you trying to play?

overheating is a possibility. these sort of problems can also be related to hardware damage. in my experience a video card that has overheated tends to crash the pc rather than freeze it.

 

[CrazeD]

Uh, I have a 430watt ASPIRE PSU. All the voltages are correct according to ABITEQ.

Well, first it started with BF2. It crashed three times, and with that being a generally buggy/glitchy game, I just got fed up and stopped trying. Then I went to play Medal of Honor for a while, and all was good until I tried to quit and turn fraps on. Then it froze while loading, and then I froze just trying to start TeamSpeak.

Also, the other day I got really weird artifacts all of a sudden, and I went to Start > shutdown > restart. As it was restarting, I got a blue screen that said something about "Beginning Physical Dump" or something along those lines, at the bottom of the screen.

I've tried a different HDD too, so it's not my XP.

 

[Nukem]

have you updated any drivers lately??? Sounds like a sever conflict...If you have the latest Nvidia driver; The one with the "control console", that might be causing it. I have had some bad times with that driver. I finally rolled back the the 84.9x forceware driver and all was good again.

 

[Nitestick]

you still haven't told us what video card you are using. never trust a sofware voltage reading or even a motherboards voltage reading at all. you should only trust the reading of a multimeter/voltmeter. those symptoms definitely sound like either a power issue or an overheating issue. make sure you have plugged in any auxillary power connectors the card may require.

 

[CrazeD]

The card is an ATi Radeon 9600 128mb. There is no auxillary power connector.

I don't have a multimeter either. Also, this has only been happening recently. My room is kept pretty cool because I almost always have my AC on.

My PSU is a cheap one that came with my 40$ case. However, it is actually made by Cyberlink, not ASPIRE as I had though. It has a dual +12v rail, each with 14A so a peak of 28A.

I have not updated anything recently, and I use the Omega tweaked drivers, which have never given me problems. I have not overclocked my card any, but my CPU is OC'ed from 2.0 to 2.1GHz. But like I said, my CPU temps never get over 30*C at idle, and never over 40*C at load.

The fan IS running on the videocard, though as small as it is I can't see why it would do anything anyway.

So, what do you think is overheating? I have only experianced bad artifacts twice, but they went away after a restart. The other times were an instant freeze.