System freezing during gaming help

Question

My machine has been acting up while gaming.  Gets pixely and freezes up. Getting annoying. All drivers are up to date. Bios is up to date. Temperature in the graphics card are normal and temp for my Cpu is normal. My 410 has all the goodies to run any game without problems; I thought. Why would my system be freezing up? Please give me any input possible i'll check it out. Thanks in advance.

XPS410 · Answer

One thing i forgot add was that before i installed my sound card everything was fine. A week later it started to screw up. Microsoft error report says to make sure my drivers are up to date and to trouble shoot my hardware excelleration. Drivers are up to date and troubleshooting didn't make a difference.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

XPS410, As a test, remove the sound card and its drivers, re-enable the onboard sound and test the games. If they run well, then the issue is with the added sound card drivers.

XPS410 · Answer

Another thing I thought of is that I only have 80 gig of free space left on my hard drive. If that matters.

XPS410 · Answer

Thank you for your suggestion. I tried what you said and same problem occured. Anymore advice?

DELL-Chris M · Answer

XPS410, Sounds like the video card is overheating.

XPS410 · Answer

I just ran a stability test for my video card from a freeware. After a couple minutes monitor started flashing froze up had to hard reboot.

XPS410 · Answer

Useing RivaTuner 2.10 card is running at 46c and my fan speed is at 80%. My card is an overclocked version core is 601, shader is 1512 and memory is 999. Regular card runs at 600,1500and 900. Was thinking about adding some case fans.

XPS410 · Answer

No I have'nt. Should I set my clocking to a standard 8800gt ?  What am gonna do is take my machine down and clean it out real good and replace some thermal compound and possibly add some cooling fans. What are the chances of my card going bad. Can I pull the heatsink off my card and replace the thermal compound?

ElkWapiti · Answer

That's a cool temp for even a standard clocked GPU. If it truly this cool the card is not overheating. However, your symptoms are of the type that occur with a hot GPU. Have you tried gaming with the standard settings?

ElkWapiti · Answer

I would try the standard clockings first and see how it goes. Cards can go bad, but they tend to either work or they don't in my experience - others may know more. I have never taken a card apart, but I imagine one can do so pretty readily. Thermal paste doesn't wear out however and you don't want to put an excess amount on in any event.

XPS410 · Answer

Thanks for the info I'll turning my clocking down first.

shdbcamping1 · Answer

XPS410,

I have a 420 that I upgraded the graphics card to 9800GTX+ for folding (PLUG for Team XPS) but the added bonus was the card's built-in fan ($179). There other cheaper cards that will provide a built-in fan for less than mine. It's an option worth looking into as (probably) like my 420.. increased tower cooling is limited. My card should play down to a 375W PSU and will "Blow Your Socks Off" compared to an 8800 card. Hope the opinion helps.

Sean

XPS410 · Answer

Turned my clock settings down and played through F.E.A.R. without a glitch. My son tried to play his 2 Worlds game and it froze up on him. So I guess it worked somewhat. Thought that factory overclocked cards were garanteed to perform. Card cooler? do they make them? More case fans? Card going bad? I'll start with a good cleaning of everything internal and see if I can move my sound card one slot down from my video card in case the sound card is helping to heat up the video card. Any other advice.

ElkWapiti · Answer

I would just turn up the card fan a bit (such as to 60%) and see if this takes care of it. If it does, then try going back to the OC settings. These cards do not like being too warm.

XPS410 · Answer

Does the 9 series take up 2 slots? I think it may be worth it to sacrifice a slot to have the heat leave the case. With the fan I have blowing on the card with the side of my case open should be plenty to cool it down or do you think case fans would do a better job.

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System freezing during gaming help

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