uriaheep

That makes it official then. You're in Baleron22, welcome to the Lovenest.

Now I have this strange image of you going round listening to psu's - "Mmm, sounds like this one's on YouTube." You're right though BB, I'm kind of running scared with it so I'm going to go over everything at the weekend.

I sorted it. The fan in the original card was running slow but didn't show, eventually it just stopped but I hadn't noticed and though it would run at normal working, when I played a game the heat would spike and close it down. When I put the older card in (which doesn't have a fan) it worked fine with older games but when I taxed it with newer games it couldn't cope with the higher workload the cpu was placing on it and also closed. If I run the old card with a large fan cooling the whole interior it's fine. So..... I need a new card. At least I know what the problem is now. Thanks to everyone who helped or tried to help. Thanks guys.

I may be getting somewhere. I downloaded the Nvidia tools and checked the cpu temp, now I'm no expert but 48 degrees fairly normal to me. With no great load the cpu's run at around 35 but when a game is running they climb to 43 with the #1 cpu running at 48. But - I put a dirty great fan into the case and tried again, the game ran fine for almost 80 mins but then it froze. I checked the temps and once again the cpu temps were in the mid to high 40's which doesn't seem that bad but the extra fan certainly seems to help. Could this be it and other than buying water cooling systems or bigger fans how do I solve this problem I wonder?

Yep done all that but the battery but the machine isn't all that old, so I discounted that - maybe it's worth a try. No, the machine has stood where it is since I put it together and worked almost faultlessly until now. It's less than a year old with all new parts. Thanks for that - I will try all these things and keep you posted. Last night I fitted a similar graphics card with a little less spec. and the freeze happened in almost the exact same time as the original card so it would seem the card isn't at fault but it is noticable that lower graphic settings allow it to run longer. Odd ain't it - power? I read somewhere that these GeForce cards had their own power supply rather than from the slot but mine doesn't seem to have this. Just a thought.

It seems it isn't the card that is at fault which is strange as turning up the graphics speeds up the failure time. Tried two other cards and the same thing happens. Problem is I have no idea where to look now. I thought it could be the power but I have been told that 600w should run this card easily, so I have to consider that the motherboard is coshed. Personally I doubt that. Oh well.

Okay, okay, I see. I just saw the Vista and thought 'I'm on XP' but I'm sure you read that on my first post and this sidebar runs on XP too.

Where's the troll when we need him?

What does this run in? Does it need the sidebar to go with it? On a side note I found the Riva fan tweeking programme that is probably very good but I have no clue how to use it.

You may be right on this one Matri, I just ran the machine with the on board graphics and bingo, the damn thing froze so I refitted the GeForce and ran the same game with very low graphics within the game. It ran for a good 40 mins so I upped the graphics and it lasted about 3 mins. Vista Sidebar gadget?? Er, oh right. Not sure what you mean there but I'm guessing I need to find some software to monitor the temp. of the card.

I did that BB and the fan runs - I found a few other problems which I sorted out last night and I will give it another try later.

Except that it's "We love Tammy." You can't just have her to yourself. She's the queen. We better watch this one guys - I think he wants to be the king and I think we have a law somewhere about that.

This isn't so much a topic as a way of life. Welcome though.

Thanks for all that - I had done most of the things you said anyway, and the machine isn't all that old so I discounted the power supply. I may have tracked the problem down though. I tried the onboard VGA (with the graphics turned down a bit) and ran the hungriest game I could find and had no problems with it albeit a little jumpy due to frame rates so I'm thinking the graphics card has gone down. Geforce 8600 GT - and I thought they were fairly reliable. I wonder if the fan on the card has gone down? Oh well, I look like shelling out some cash to find out for sure. Thanks again everyone. Have a good New Year.

Okay - so it's Christmas and I am sat here thinking 'plenty of serious time for gaming'. Not so because although it's winter I shouldn't be freezing as much as my pc thinks I should. No matter what game I play it locks up within a couple of minutes. Nothing else - just games. Latest, drivers for everything loaded and yet I still can't use it. The odd thing is, it seems to have got steadily worse so that it locks up almost imedietely I begin. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. Other than that there will be an electronic death in the family. Oh, and have a good Christmas everyone. :Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.4ghz 3326 ram Direct x 9 running on XP with all latest drivers loaded: