I've had this computer for about a year and it was working fine. This past summer i threw in an extra stick of 256 DDR Ram and had no problems. My brother got me a 128 mb GeForce4 4400 for my birthday and i added that to the computer, replacing a Geforce 2. About two weeks later my computer started to beep while playing a game. This happened fairly frequently only during the game. I put 2 and 2 together and figured it was overheating, i tried exchanging the card just in case. Still happened, so i went to and got it checked out the guy just told me that it runs hot as does the memory and processor, fair enough. The thing is i was hopin to be able to buy Unreal Tournament 2k3 and run it well, not with my old graphics card. So i bought a fan and installed it underneath the card, things worked fine. It happened again when i tried unreal, i bumped the video settings down so i wasnt overworking it...it stopped for then. Suddenly i used a new memory killing program and that caused my memory to heat up and make my system overheat (i think it all happens with the beeping and slowdown). It finally has gotten to the point where it overheats during a defrag, i turned it off and let it cool down overnight and then tried still overheats. This will be a problem. The graphics card was a lot of money to say the least and i was hoping for some kind of solution to keep my system running even when playing a game. I thought of installing a fan in a hole id have to create in my case, but i dont know if its recommended. By the way, its running off an Asus A7A266 motherboard. I hope theres some tech junkies to help me out.

http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/casecutting/ This is a great guide on how to force fans in a case without holes... if you want a temporary solution just take off your case cover. You might also consider moving a large room fan to blow cool air around the computer... but you do need to install about 2 intake and output fans in your case to prevent overheating issues. The GF4 and DDR memory are both very hot elements, so installing those is what introduced the problem. Good luck getting it fixed. Jason F

Thanks for the input, one final question. I've looked into fans and the link to cutting my case up. I have my cover off for now and i have some dustremover so im good for a lil. But on my power box it says 300W model, so im guessing thats what i got. Is there any way of knowing how much ive taken up and if i should take out the lil fan i installed after my G4 problems? i was thinking 2 80 mm fans on the side of my comp, the one closer to the front blowing in, the outher blowing out.... i hope anyone can gimme this last info i need

Chris - the fact that you are adding the fans is always a great idea. But I caught one thing that you mentioned in an earlier post. 300W power supply. Now, when you add more components like DDR and an extremely intense Video card, you are drawing a lot more wattage off the supply. when the computer does NOT have enough power to supply to all of your components correctly, it can draw MUCH more amperage and create a ton of heat. I'd be willing to bet if you upped your p/s you'd have much fewer problems. A lot cheaper than frying the whole thing.

if the motherboard beeps that means it cant process all the things that are happining. for instance, when i play medal of honor, on the algiers map where everyong is throwing grenades in the alley, sometimes is so much occuring while im pressing the buttons, that the internal speaker beeps. its not the mobo or heat, just the comp being momentarily overtaxed. when its a hardware problem, the board will usually beep at boot up or restart. what resoultion are you running the game in? dont run it at 1600*1200 or some insane resolution. try 1024*768 with everything on max. if it still does that than try 800x600. also, turn AA of. go to desktop properties and select vid card, then advanced and find and turn faa off or set it at 2x max. that should help.