VIdeo Freeze and Audio Looping

[synth7]

MSI K8T Neo2-FIR (AMI BIOS)
AMD Athlon64 3000+ (Winchester core, stock 1.8GHz)
Corsair XMS 1GB (2x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC3200) Dual Channel
ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8x, latest drivers and CCC)
Windows XP Home w/ Service Pack 2
Maxtor Diamond10 200GB SATA hard drive

Long story short, I try to play any game, it will give me the video freeze and audio looping problem. Even in Counter-Strike 1.6 (a 5+ year old game), right when it loads up and I click a menu option, it will freeze the video, make the audio loop very obnoxiously for a few seconds, and then my monitor will go off, and I'll have to hold the power button for 5 seconds.

Outside of that problem, my Windows and ATI Catalyst Control Panel and both tweaked to the settings I want. On this page where it documents my problem and possible solutions, it doesn't work for me because I have fast write and write combining off, and I've never overclocked my video card. ATI Tool reports my core at 378MHz and the Mem at 337.50MHz, and I average over 140fps in the ATI Tool 3D window. I can provide any other information necessary, just ask, and hopefully we can fix this problem.

 

[Nitestick]

first off, has the system as it is set up now ever played these games properly or has it always been a problem?

 

[synth7]

It used to play all the games fine. Someone on another forum mentioned it could be the video card overheating, but the side of my case (black X-Blade, if you want to google for pictures) has a fan blowing right at the video card, and it's not overclocked.

Also, running Prime95 gave me a FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4 after 17 minutes of running. What could this be?

 

[MrCoffee]

can you check your cpu temp? also try uninstalling and reinstalling your graphics card and sounds card drivers. ifyou recently updated either try a rollback first.
Also i doubt the fatal error is related, a compatability issue perhaps, you might also test your ram.

 

[synth7]

My RAM tests out fine, no errors in Memtest running for a few hours.

The CPU temp brings me to a different issue I had forgotten about. Before I flashed my BIOS, my CPU temp would read a normal 30C or more at idle, now with the new bios, however after my BIOS flash, everything (Everest Ultimate Edition, Motherboard Monitor, even the BIOS itself) sees the CPU temperature as never more than 20C, and sometimes at 12C, which I am postive is a false reading. I don't know if that could have anything to do with it. I've unisntalled and reinstalled ATI's Catalyst Control Center and Radeon drivers countless times.

 

[synth7]

Please see THIS POST as I also posted my problem there, and things have changed.