3D crash after upgrading to a new harddrive

[pelos66]

Hi, i've got an odd issue..well, not that odd, happened before when my last video card passed away.
Well, i just bought a new harddrive, downloaded latests drivers, service packs, and so on. Fresh new install... AV (Avast), Anti-spyware (windows defender, spybot), ForceWare Release 90 (93.71), etc...

And sometimes when playing, either the computer freezes so i have to hard-reboot, or the game just locks with some weird image and sound corruption, and i have to press alt-f4 to close it and keep using the computer fine, till i play again.

That never happened before, it just began to happen after the new install. Then i went back to the old harddrive (without disconnecting the other, just selected to boot from the other harddrive), to boot with my old install, and problem persists.

3DMark 2005, 2003 crashes.
UT2004 crashed, Guild Wars crahes, and sometime dxdiags shows corrupted cubes on 3d tests only at dx7.0 and dx8.0 tests).

i've got and Athlon XP 3000+, 1 gb ram, Audigy 2 ZS, GF 6200 AGP 256 Mb and...

3 harddrives (2 SATA, 1 ATA), 2 dvdrw's, one lan card, one modem, 4 vents for getting the hotair out, 1 floppy, 4 usbs....
My PSU is 400 watt

I tried removing and re-inserting 3d card a couple of times but it didnt seem to work... i thought about re-install drivers (which i didnt), cause the problem is the same on my old installation that was working fine (i re-installed cause its kinnda terapeutic to do so every 4 months or so); so i think it maybe hardware, just cant find out what is causing this.

IT works perfectly fine when in the desktop, but not at my games

1. Could it be a wattage problem? my power supply is 400 watts i read once that every component uses a specifi amount of watts (harddrive x, videocard y, etc.. so x+y+z doesnt have to go further the power supply wattage... how can i know if it is causing the problem? is there a list where i can see the exact amount per component? This is my first impression on this.

2. Could it be the sound card? or Videocard that is not well inserted? isnt it supposed to do not work at all it andy of this werent inserted firmly?

3. IS my video card dying?

Please, help

Thank you in advance.
P.S. The only difference between now and the time (some days ago) i was using my system, is a third harddrive...

 

[pelos66]

I just umpluged harddrives and innecesary hardware...
Its not Watt problem.

When at the desktop it works perfectly fine... but, when 3Ding, sometimes computer freezes... and other times graphics just get corrupted... I tried all 3dmarks, and some games, and on every case, graphics got corrupted.

What do you suggest?

 

[Baez]

It sounds like a video card problem for sure. It might have just been that your card started dying at the same moment you installed a new HD. What do your video card temps look like. Run a 3D game for a couple mins before it crashes and use a temp program like ATItool or PC Wizard and post the temp.

 

[pelos66]

Another thing im noticing is that it could be heat.
Everyghing works fine, even at 3D, but in this case, only the very first 3, 4 minutes...

I Ran UT2004 with the video card temp monitor; and im seeing how it is increasing from 60 to 73, 74... the 74 is the point where it begins to fail. Then, i exit the game; wait a couple of minutes, and the game starts fine (this doesnt happen if i run the game inmediatly after getting out).

Is the temp afecting?. if my Video Card didnt came with a fan on it, and it worked fine the first 4, 5 months (only with the metal heat disip), why the temperature is becoming a problem now??

Help !!