post copied from another forum, but describes exactly the problem i have :
"OKay i currently have 2 games installed after purchasing my new computer and they are BLADE OF DARKNESS and Warcraft 3
in each of these games after approx an half an hour of play to an hour, the screen locks and i cannot move the mouse pointer, alt-tab, ctrl-alt-del also doesnt work, nothing....the only way to fix this is to hit reset ............after resetting, i can probably get in about 1 more game and half way through the second game i get this lockup again
my system specs are:
* p4 3.0 prescott
* 512mb transcend ddr400
* ATI 9550
* asus p4p800-E Deluxe
* HDD 120Go
* windows 2K pro
i know its not a power supply issue as i have friends with the exact same power supply running bigger, thirstyer cards eg 5900xt's etc
i have ran memtest86+ from www.memtest.org and do not understand much about this program but there were 32 passed and 42050 errors @ test #5 ......after 8 hours of testing still happening i rebooted my comp, closing memtest to write this.........this makes me think i have faulty RAM ?!?
other related problems are, often at startup i get the message "overclocking failed - F1 to run default values ; F2 to enter bios rah rah blah.......this makes me think my BIOS/CMOS is screwed, but i think more probably my mobo is just crap (VIA chipset )
Also when i have my VPU Recover turned on in the ATi Control Panel, games often cut out to this popup saying something along the lines of "your graphics acceleration has stopped responding to commands given etc etc a report has been prepared for ATi send/dont send" ......this is at the point where i think my video card is screwed but having just updated recently upgraded to this new comp, and had the same video card in my old comp and it worked fine, so i doubt its the video card unless it has crapped itself since
....i doubt its my video card as when the lockup occurs its not as if heaps more moving objects just came on the screen for it not to handle, it happens at any point of time during the game, even the least demanding situations like a load screen, not specifically actual gameplay...................at this stage i believe it is to be my motherboard, possibly a faulty AGP port in the board or bad bus between the AGP + CPU or something
i have tried everything, changing my AGP aperature in the bios down to 64mb, as well as all my performance settings in the ATi control panel, changing my res, turning the graphics down in the actual games themselves, turning my agp down to x4..........im ripping my hair out atm
just wondering if this has happened to anyone and they can tell me whats wrong, or if anybody has any suggestions......im at the point where im about to just start troubleshooting by buying new parts until the problem is resolved....even though i cant really afford it, i just want to get the problem resolved by hopefully replacing only 1 bit of hardware .......ANY help would be greatly appreciated "
and yesss my computer is overheating, i've never seen that before.
