Ok what model do you have?

If it's a 5100/5150/1100 then blow all the dust out of the fans with compressed air then turn it back on again!

HI JOHN,

 You might be running on low power scheme thats why the video stutters; change your power scheme to "always on"  are you using windows XP?

start> control Panel> performance and maintenance> power options>power scheme tab

then click OK then try to play nba live again

hope it works....

Bench  

 

try playing your games on a 16-bit color if your games are compatible or lower your resolution

maybe u r having heating problems too ..........good luck

Did you try blowing the fans out with compressed air?

I was having the same problem, but then my comp started turning off randomly (overheating?), and i had my motherboard replaced, but now ALL games run EXTREMELY slow ALL the time.  see this thread http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=153227

I formatted, and did everything else, but still no luck.

i just got my fan replaced 3 weeks ago and have been blowing out the vents weekly, but no results

take a look at my thread:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=153227

Holla, I had a 3700 with a broken CPU fan that would just randomy shut down and not start again until it cooled.  I think it would get jerky a bit b4 the crash.  Anyways, i think that's different.  Try that guys power management stuff.  If that doesn't work, try the Omega Drivers, as I use them on my laptop and I can run AA 1.9 at 1024x768 on my I8000 R7500, but I think that's just the radeon, not the omega's.  Good luck...  Here's the omega site: www.omegacorner.com  One wierd occurance I have had iZ that some time they get wierd if you plug/unplug them to muhc.  Make sure you boot of the power source you intend to use.  -=sLaShA=-

i tried the power management settings, it didnt help,

i normally use Max Performance which is a setting that comes with the Dell Quickset utility, this is the setting I used to use before my video card starting acting up, and it worked fine,

How would the omega drivers help? I have been using the Dell NVIDIA 44.82 drivers up until about a month ago when I got my motherboard replaced, and they used to work PERFECTLY. 

Now, I have tried, 44.82, 45.86, 56.72, and all experience the exact same problem and I am getting equivalent 3DMark 2001 SE Build 330 benchmark scores (around 3000- should be around 7700).  I dont think it is a driver issue,

any ideas?

John,

I'm having almost exactly the same problem with my laptop.

I have an inspiron 8600 with the raedon 9600 128mb graphics card.

After playing almoast every game for about an hour, the whole screen starts flickering and gets distorted.

I have been onto dell about this issue since 6 days after I got the computer in feburary.

I have had my graphics card replaced twice, and on the second time my porcessor and heatsink were replaced aswell, still no joy.  Then they replaced the DVD writer combo, but as expected, I'm still having the same problem.

I'm waiting over a week now for tech support to get back to me over this issue.

The only other side-effect is that the RAM compartment at the centre of the base overheats unbelieveably.

Have run full h-ware diags and everything seems ok, cooling fan still spins up when it should.

HELP!!!!