System Freezes and Blacksout under Intense Usage

[Falcon1209]

When playing games under my system, the computer will often, after 10 minutes of playing, cut off my video source (monitor gives message) and I can still hear sound in the background. The sound cuts off after a few more seconds and all I have left is a prompt on my monitor and a computer which sounds like its running fine (fans still moving, everything on.)

I dont know where to start diagnosing the problem. Any suggestions?

System specs:

Thermaltake VA3000BWA
Enermax Noisetaker 600w
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
BFG GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E
Corsair XMS 3200XLPRO (2x512)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
2 WD 160GB SATAs
Windows XP Pro

 

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

Now by the sounds of it you've got a lot of stuff in your comp, check your temps man, might be overheating. I know that for HL2 if your system ain't cooled properly during those loading sequences your comp's likely to die on ya. Since you have asus, it has somekindof heat temp measuring program you could use, otherwise you could just google a program called speedfan. It's free, it's sweet. If your temps are above 50ºC then start to worry, if they're idling at over 60ºC? then cooling's definately your issue. Make sure you also don't have your comp inna suffocated place. Inna cabinet is out of the question unless you have a big fan in there. Pretty much big fan anywhere is good.

Other than this? your comp settings should be fine man, big psu.. dunno if enermax is anygood though.. also could be drivers man, keep your vidcard up to date and your soundcard, especially soundcard as I've noticed the sound blaster audigy's aren't as strong with drivers as their older vidcards.. infact, I've tried the latest drivers with my audigy gamer, and my sound starts to CRACKLE and POP like crazzzy. Yeah, remind me to use onboard sound next time n' save my cash... anyone wanna buy a sound blaster audigy gamer? it comes with DeusEX GOTY edition and Giants Citizen Cabuto?

 

[Falcon1209]

Right now my PC is running at CPU: 46C GPU: 66C System:42C
These are pretty low right?

Also, the menu on NFSU 2 locks up constantly. When it shows you the car on the platform... I dont Know thats related to the problem.

 

[Falcon1209]

Im starting to wonder wether or not its a motherboard short? Someone told me thats the problem they had. Similar symptoms... I dont know what else it could be. NFSU2 still crashes after reinstall and default graphics.

 

[Static_11]

sounds like a CPU overheat to me... but.. i dont know why the fans would still be running...